


Origins: Switched (2)

by quaviondre



Series: Origins [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Supernatural
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blood and Violence, Blow Jobs, Bottom Castiel (Supernatural), Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Bottom Dean Winchester, Bottom Sam, Bottom Sam Winchester, Castiel is Joker, Castiel is Protective of Dean Winchester, Child Abuse, Crossover, Dark Fantasy, Dean Winchester is Protective of Castiel, Dean is Harley Quinn, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Violence, F/M, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time Bottoming, Gay Sex, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Past Abuse, Rimming, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Top Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:47:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27941018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quaviondre/pseuds/quaviondre
Summary: Set one year after the events of Origins: The Harley Quinn Story, this story follows the villainous quartet of friends: Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, KillerFrost, and Feline, as they team up to secure a priceless crystal for a 40,000 dollar contract. However, the crystal in question, is more than what it seems and takes the four of them by surprise as it turns their lives upside down. Told from the perspective of Poison Ivy, the journey to righting the mistakes of the crystal helps him face his true feelings for his best friend Harley Quinn. Will this crystal destroy the relationship Harley and Ivy have recently mended? Or will it finally reveal the answer to the question that Ivy has never really asked himself: Could Harley be the one?
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel Joker/Dean Harley, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Joker (DCU) & Harleen Quinzel, Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel, Lucifer/Sam Winchester
Series: Origins [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046125
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I thought that this was going to be a one-off fanfiction. I truly did believe that when this idea first came into my head, that it was going to be a cute little one-shot. Never did I believe that this would actually develop it would turn into this, so of course, I couldn't leave you hanging. Yep, you read that part right, and yes honey, it's happening. There is one more story to go after this one. 
> 
> I was not at all expecting this story to go in the direction that it did, but I'm so happy that it was. I'm taking you all on an emotional, thrilling journey, full of twists and turns, tears and laughter, but above all else, I'm giving you Harley.This series has gotten me really excited and I'm so happy to share it with you guys. So buckle up because you don't want to miss a second of this page tuner right here. It's crazy-exciting. Get it? See what I did there? Crazy...you know like Harl-eh, never mind.
> 
> Sidebar, if you're wondering who Feline and Frost are modeled after in the Supernatural-verse: Frost is modeled after Chuck Shurley, Feline is modeled after Jack Kline, The Bat is modeled after Bela Talbot, Robin is modeled after Charlie

**1 Year Later**

"Ahhh!" the guard screams as one of my vines thrusts through the glass behind him as it snatches him backward and through the door. I jogging down the small enclosed chamber, trying my best to stay focused on the objective at hand.

I didn't exactly play well with others, but these three weren't half bad partners. I leaped down the hall to try and reach the podium containing the artifact, but as soon as I was close enough I was tackled by one of the guard's who pushed us both into the wall behind me.

I heard the gunfire in the background, echoing off the cylindrical chamber in the middle of the museum and elbowed the guard in his back. He screamed out a little as I kneed him in the stomach to push him upward, before punching him in the jaw. I gripped my hands tightly and felt the pulsating feeling of my connection to the Green and pulled my babies from the earth through the window adjacent to me.

The vines flew through the window and just as the man was recollecting himself and wrapped around his neck, snatching him through and out the other side, flinging his body to the cement outside.

Three more guards appeared and I readied myself, but before I got the chance Feline flopped down from the railing above upside down, and snatched one of the guards' weapons, and cracking him on the head. Frost, not a second too soon, froze the other two guard's weapons as I bonded upward in a roundhouse kick to shatter the arms of the guard's as the fell to the ground screaming and fading away,

"This is really starting to piss me off," Frost says, as he thrust his hands forward, freezing the guard that appeared behind Feline solid. Feline turned and jump kicked the frozen guard shattering the body.

"They just keep coming!" Feline yelled in frustration, as he leaped onto one of the railings above him kicking the other two guards that appeared in front of him in the face as I called from beneath them to tightening my grip to activate their thorns, killing them instantly.

"I thought you could control people?" Feline asks, hurriedly backflipping onto a newly appeared guard's neck, jerking his body downward cracking his neck the moment they impacted the ground beneath them. Frost sends three ice shards killing the newly created guards.

"I can," I respond, turning to send my vines from the broken window across the railing towards the other four gauds who were running towards me, throwing two of them against the wall, crushing them, and tearing through the other two. I turn back to Feline who'd kicked one of the other guards across the railing,

"But as you can clearly see, they aren't people!"

"We don't have time to argue, we're about to—no!" Frost screams thrusting his hands out sending a cold blast of frost towards the guard racing towards the artifact knocking him off the platform and to the ground floor, three flights below.

Both Feline and I turn to the platform, realizing that what the duplicates were just trying to do. Four more appear racing towards the platform, as ten of them appear on our side, weapons at the ready.

I thrust out my hands in fury, calling out for the Green, the vines come rushing inside, tearing through five guards on my side. Feline, leaps over onto the platform, taking on the four guard's trying to get the artifact on the platform. He claws through the first two, striking them across the face and chest and kicking them off the platform.

Before the other two could reach for their weapons, he snatches his bullwhip from his side and cracks it towards the guard's hands, smacking the weapons from their hands. They grip their hands in pain as Feline falls toward the platform on all fours and bounds onto the two of them, jumping up at the very last second to kick the two of them in the chest, sending them flying off the platform.

I see one of the guards appear closer to the artifact on the platform and I thrust my hands forward, the vines piercing through the now shattered window, but misses the guard who jumps over my vine towards the artifact. Feline notices my attempt and cracks his bullwhip right around the guard's neck while he was still in the air, and Feline snatches him back, throwing to the ground below.

I turned to Frost who'd already impaled the other five guards with his ice shards but was locked in a standoff with six or seven guards firing what looked like semiautomatic heat-guns that were seemingly piercing through his ice wall, almost as fast as he was making it. If he wavers even for a second, the bullets might pierce through completely. I grip my hands into a tight fist, calling to the Green as I reached to the vines on the window on the other side of Frost's ice-wall.

I let my mind travel deep into the soil and lowered my body and fists toward the metal flooring panels we were standing on and directed my fist towards the wall to the right of me and jerked upward pulling deep into my strength. I watched as, on the other side of the ice wall, a tree trunk came bursting through the glass and metal, killing all the guards on the other side.

Frost released his ice blast and tried his hardest to catch his breath, but the moment was left shortened as the guards continued to appear on the other side of the railings, and Feline was starting to struggle to try to defend the artifact so that we could take it. With a tree trunk inside the building, my powers had more range, so while Frost took a second to regain his breath called the roots in the tree and summoned one to the surface and sent it flying through the crowd of guard duplicates that were starting to appear.

The one root, shot through the chests of the duplicates, one by one, zigzagging until it got through most of them. I knew I killed at least fifteen of them, but out of those fifteen, more seemed to appear from them. Frost and I watched in a surprise, as the duplicates with the root in their chests, seemed to pull themselves from it, but as we looked closer, we released, that it wasn't the dead ones, but the duplicates themselves, making more of themselves.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Frost screams, having gained some of his strength back, and angrily thrusts his hands out sending shards of ice flying towards the new copies.

"Why are we doing all the work anyway? Where is he?!" Feline screams at me cracking his whip back and forth against the appearing guard's as he stands in front of the artifact. The newly appearing guard's being thrown to the ground below, but there are too many to keep up with, and I could see that Feline was getting tired.

I looked around hurriedly trying to find him and saw him walking, perfectly balanced on the side railings, his signature bat behind his head, with his hands draped across each side of it.

"Harley!" I scream out, and he, almost as if broken from a daze, turns and smiles at me, waving at me hard like a four-year-old.

"Hiya, Ivy, what's up?" he asks, feigning innocence.

"Can you fucking help us?!" Feline responds sarcastically, losing his footing a little as the guard's start to appear more quickly.

"You have to ask nicely," Harley says, smiling from ear to ear.

"Harley!" the three of us scream, and he rolls his eyes, turning his back to us and pulling his bat down from behind his head,

"Fine, I guess I could drop in," he says, as he leaps backward of the railing,

"Trust fall!"

I hurriedly thrust my hands forward, heart racing. At this point, I was terrified. One misstep, slip, and he was going to fall to the hardwood floor below, hard. I watched, holding my breath as Harley slips his bat around the vine coming across the platform, latching onto my railing just in time.

He bounds upward, swinging both his feet forward kicking the one creating the other duplicates off the platform. He used the force of the kick to push himself backward and flips over to a perfect dismount as he lands directly beside Feline, turning to him, impressed. Harley turns to Feline, smiling.

"Let's have some fun," he says, pulling his blades from his boots and leaping onto the guard's on the platform. Harley was an animal. Gleefully laughing as he slit throats left and right, slicing through stomachs, and chest's, missing the riddling bullets by centimeters. It was a spectacle to watch.

Feline joined in, but he didn't really have to do much, seeing as though Harley was already through half of the duplicates on the platform. He was covered in their blood, and he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

I was so mesmerized by the scene until Frost sent a cold blast that barely missed my face at another guard that was about to aim a gun at me. We were back on a mission now. I had to stay focused. I jerked my hands up and forcing my roots to tear through the bodies that it'd pierced and watched as they faded, new ones starting to reappear and take their place. These things were coming out of nowhere. Frost and I could barely keep up.

"All of this for some shiny rock?!" Frost said sending his shards of ice flying through killing four of the sixteen and counting duplicates.

"All I know is, this better be worth it," I say frustratedly, sending my roots through the steadily appearing guard's.

"We need to kill the original!" Feline screams out and Frost and I look over at Feline and Harley still locked in battle with the others. Harley found a gun and was starting to go at it. Killing multiple duplicates, with just a few rounds. He was such a natural at it that it's hard to believe that he'd only started killing a year ago.

For him and Feline not to possess any significant supernatural abilities like Frost and I, it was an impressive feat. They were holding their own just as well as we are. And from the looks at it, Harley was getting through his more quickly than we were.

"They're all duplicating, how do we know which one's the original?!" I scream out, turning back to the newly appeared duplicates. Frost turning at the same time, he looked at me and nodded, and I agreed. I clenched my hands into a fist, calling the roots back to me, and they followed suit, rising to my side, following my unspoken command, and Frost's eyes glowed a fiercer white as his hands start to mist with frosty air.

I gripped my hands tighter coaxing my roots to unite as one single root and they aimed themselves toward the middle of the guards.

We both stared at the guards racing toward us, twenty or so to say the least. They didn't even bother picking up weapons, who'd seemed to realize they outnumbered us. I thrust my hands forward, at the very same moment that Frost threw out his hands, and as my now unified root flew forward, down the middle of the guard's and Frost's cold blast coated it with an ice layer that created stalactite ice shards that went in every direction killing all twenty of the guards in one blow.

We didn't even get the chance to celebrate before the other guard's started appearing. We'd thought that killing them all at once would slow their duplication, but apparently that only magnified it, there were now forty odd something guard's that were all on the circular metal platforms that Frost and I were standing on that lined the walls of the circular building we were in.

This time the men were even more direct and started to run toward us, I called for the roots and trees outside the building and called them forward. To trees burst through either side of Frost and I and gave us a brief reprieve from the men that were after us.

"There's too many!" Frost screams out,

"We need to get out, it's not worth it!"

"The hell it isn't!" Harley answer back, jump-kicking their last duplicate from the platform to the ground below,

"It's not about that thing anymore, now it's about us! The shit is pissing me off!"

"There are more coming," Feline says, readying his whip when he sees three more guards's about to run down the platform he's on.

"Alright!" Harley screams, snatching up the two machine guns from the ground beneath him, one in either hand and turns to Frost,

"Frosty, let's try Ice Princess!"

Frost immediately kneels down, grips the creaking platform with his hands, the metal around his hands freezing over as his eyes glow a fierce white. I look to my sides and see the guard duplicates trying to crawl over the tree blocking their path, and focus as I summon more branches to block their way.

I look at Harley who backs up to the edge of the platform that was in the middle of the building and starts to break into a run as Frost flattened his hands against the metal and I watch as the cold blast from his hands connects to the platform in the middle and starts spreading quickly into air between our platform and Harley's, creating a pseudo floor of mist in the air.

Just as Harley leaps off the platform spinning in the air, Frost lifts his hands up and slams them against the metals and I watch as the mist cloud coming from the force of his hands slamming down, cleared instantly revealing a solid floor off ice in the air. It wasn't connected to the floor below, it only connected our two platforms.

Harley landed on the points of his feet, spinning in a perfect pirouette, machine guns in hand, blasting away. It took Feline and me, a mere second to realize what 'ice princess' was code for, so we were already ducking on the floor as Harley released riddles of bullets. What was surprising to me wasn't that he what he was doing, but how accurately he was doing it. I watched as he hit most of the guards on our platform and the ones that were reappearing on the one in the middle. And he was doing it all while screaming, 'weee'.

He was having a good time and his aim was almost as impeccable as Deadshot herself. I think Harley was giving her a run for her money. Thankfully while Harley was killing the others, Feline leapt into the air, missing Harley's range of fire and used his bullwhip to latch onto the railing of the platform above ours swinging himself over to the other side of the platform in the middle, using one of the duplicates to break his fall, landing on him just as Harley throws his machine guns to the slide to catch himself on our railing.

"Wowie! What a rush!" he says gleefully. I turn to Feline who cracks his neck and gets on all fours, the leather on his suit hugging him tightly. We all watch as the duplicates start to reappear on the platform and watch as his hazel eyes, narrow into slits, as he bars his sharpen canines and starts racing forward on all fours tearing through the duplicates like a lioness, vicious and unrelenting.

We all watched in awe as he tears through them all like paper before he leaps onto the plexiglass that has somehow shielded the artifact from the riddles of bullets and snatches it off flipping in the air down to the ground beneath him. We all look over the edge, in surprise, hoping that Feline didn't just slip, but the moment we see him land on his feet, artifact in his hand, safely encased. He turns to look at us, his eyes, having returned to their more human appearance and smiles slyly.

"You coming or what?" He says, as he starts racing toward the entrance, I jump off the ledge onto the ice platform that Frost created and Harley wraps his arms around my waist as Frost jumps forward, thrusting his hands out creating an almost slide down to the bottom floor, and Harley lifts me into his arms,

"Hey hot stuff, let's ride," he says leaping up, and skating down the ice slide with me held in his arms bridal style sliding down to the floor below. I was still pissed at him, but I loved being carried like this, and he knows this, that's why he did it. Once we reached the bottom Frost turned back to the other guard duplicates that were racing to try and jump onto the slide after us.

Frost crossed his misty hands into an X and threw both his hands to the side, shattering the ice platform and the slide forcing all the guards to fall to their death. We turn and start running after Feline who's almost made it to the door and we finally see the original standing at the front of the door blocking the path. The guard was standing there, eyes closed tightly, mumbling to himself and we watched as duplicates started to appear behind us.

Frost tried throwing a few ice shards his way, but the moment they got too close, the guard had already created a duplicate to take the shard in front of him. Harley tried firing weapons, but the guard just created more and more duplicates to act as his body shield. Before Feline could get his chance, a duplicate appeared in front of him mid-stride, and he ran face first into his chest, sending him flying back to the ground, but he kept the artifact in hand.

"That's it!" I screamed. Feeling my eyes growing black as the Green heard my call. My body was alive with power as stopped suddenly and clasped my hands toward the ground, digging deep into the soil with my mind, pulled them upward, this time, mirroring the action I needed my baby to do. Everyone heard the rumbling beneath us as the beautifully monstrous Venus flytrap broke through the pavement underneath the original guard and clasped on both him and the body shield of guard's surrounding him.

I dug my nails into my both palms of my hands hard, breaking the skin, as I allowed my gorgeous creature's teeth to grow so large and so fast that it ripped through both the human inside and itself. I threw my hands to the side and watched as my beautiful creature falls to the ground. Thorns having cut through its own flesh.

Frost, Feline, and Harley all looked at the duplicates that were about to surround us all vanish instantly. I walk over to my creature, tears welling in my eyes. I waved my hands across her face and she opened her mouth to me, revealing the severely impaled corpse of the guard inside. I stepped closer to the guard and saw that he was still breathing, struggling, much like my baby.

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, causing my creature to retract her thorns, releasing the man inside. She didn't have much time, so I had to work fast. I stepped closer to the man and covered his mouth as he stared into my eyes.

"Consider this a small compensation for what your kind has done to mine," I say, covering his nose as well, watching as he struggled to breathe. He tries to haphazardly grab my arms, but he was too weak. It took a manner of seconds before he was dead, and I pushed him into my baby's mouth. I stepped out of her mouth and coaxed it closed as she takes him in. I watch as the nutrients in the man's body revitalized my baby's lifeforce.

I could feel the Green absorbing his energy, his metahuman DNA providing the substance my creature would need to continue living. I stepped back and watched as the Venus repaired herself, becoming more and more revitalized until she has returned to me. I stepped closer and kissed her on her head, I could feel her cooing at me. Grateful.

"I'd never hurt you, dear, not unless I have to. You served me well. Rest now. Rest. Daddy will tend to you later," I say, the Venus lifts her head and pulls herself back to the soil below. I take in a shaky breath, thankful that I was able to save my child. Thankful that her gorgeous lifeforce did not have to be extinguished by yet another human pestilence.

I look to my hands, already having healed itself, but the pain of what I had to do remained. I never liked using my children in this way. The Green gave me the gift to speak to her children who soon became mine as well. They resurrected me when I was dead, restored me as a thank you for my dedication to them, even healed my form so that I may walk on this earth to continue my efforts.

So whenever I was forced to hurt my children, in any way, it hit me hard. My babies are my life, my essence, who I am, and having to use them this way, it makes me hate my human side more and more. Because even I, even the one they trusted most, the one that was meant to protect them, even I had to hurt them sometimes. That was a scar that no metahuman healing factor could erase from my soul.

"Ivy...you uh...you okay?" Harley asks. I shake off my inner thoughts and turn to the three of them looking at me in worry,

"I'm fine, let's go before Feline's girlfriend shows up, the alarm is already going off, won't take her long to get here," I say, ignoring Harley's question and open the door to the outside, the other three following suit.

"She's not my girlfriend!" Feline yelled behind me, we all ran, already hearing the distant sound of the Batmobile echoing around us. Thankfully she was a good distance away, and we'd be long gone before she got to us. I didn't understand why this artifact was so important, but somebody was willing to pay top dollar to all four of us to get it, and none of us were turning that down.

***********************************************************

"Honestly, I don't get it? A metahuman guard? Beefed up security? All for one white stone thing?" Feline asked, sitting at the table, inspecting the artifact encased in the plexiglass. We were all sitting at the small table in my house that was in my quaint kitchen. Harley was laying in the middle of the table, watching Feline, as Frost and I sat on either side.

"Yeah, it's not gold or silver, hell, it's not even money, so what's with all the excessive security?" Frost answered, his voice retaining it's supernatural, frozen echo.

"You sure you didn't just get us into all of this because you were bored," I respond, my voice inching toward annoyance after that little stunt he pulled at the museum.

"Look, guys, I told ya, I got a note that said that someone had a job for us, they said they were willing to pay us 40,000 dollars to rob someplace, for the _mutatio_ rock. We all agreed that we'd do it, and the people want it this Wednesday, which means we only have to wait one more day, and they'll have their funny looking rock, and we'll have our money. Win, win," Harley responds, using his fake Bronx accent.

It used to annoy me, but now that he's done for so long, I've just learned to accept it. Frankly, it fits the whole Harlequin esthetic he's putting on.

"Still, this thing has got to be valuable if it took all four of us combined to steal it, why does someone want this rock so bad," Frost added.

"Does it matter? We're about to be 40,000 dollars richer, yeah it might've taken a little more out of us than we expected to get it, but still. If someone's gonna pay us that kind of money to steal it, I'll happily give it to them," Harley continues.

"I'm with Frost on this one Harley, what is it about this quartz that would make someone hire the four of us to get it. What if it's worth more than just the 40,000, what if we could get like ten times that on the black market?" I add in, thinking of all my contacts with the underground criminal system in Gotham, trying to figure out if I knew anyone with a particular interest in crystal.

"Quartz?" Harley asks, confused.

"It's a clear white quartz crystal, not a rock, that's why this doesn't make any sense. White quartz aren't exactly rare, they're pretty common in nature, you could probably go to Amazon and get about six of these for under twenty dollars," I add in.

"So why would someone pay so much to get this one, and why was there a metahuman protecting it, this just doesn't add up, there has got to be more to this thing than we know. What if it's apart of something else?" Frost ponders.

"Can you three stop trying to act like Nancy Drew and just accept the fact that we have a win and we're about to be rolling in money, this isn't the Davinci Code, we got a job, we stole to product, and now we're about to get paid, case closed," Harley adds, jumping off the table to accentuate his point.

"But that still doesn't explain why the product is worth so much. Before we call them up, how about we shop it around a bit, see if we can get some more money for it," Frost continues.

"Yeah, but I think we should at least figure out what it is first, why it's so important, we can't just go down there trying to sell something we don't fully understand, people will probably look at us like we're crazy, no offense, Harley," I add in, taking a jab at Harley intentionally.

He cocks his head, realizing this and I turn back to Frost, my point made. I knew Harley was aware that he wasn't sane, but he didn't like people reminding him of it, especially not us, but I couldn't help myself because I was barely maintaining my anger at him.

"Okay...," Harley looks at me curiously before turning back to Frost,

"But even if we did take it down there, what if no one offers us the same amount that these people are, then we'd be wasting valuable time for—"

 _Crack!_ Harley's sentence was cut off instantly, as the three of us looked at Feline in surprise, who'd in the midst of us arguing, figured out a way to break the plexiglass protecting the crystal.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I yell at Feline, who merely shrugged and shook the remaining glass off of the case and sat it on the table in front of us.

"You guys were talking too much, besides, I want to know what all the fuss is about, so I figured the only way to figure that out was to break it open and look inside," Feline responds nonchalantly.

"What if you broke it, then none of us would have anything!" Frost screams at him, Feline merely rolls his eyes, and leans in closer to the crystal.

"Well, I didn't so, there, besides, it doesn't look like a piece of glass will hurt it any. It's a rock guys, I'm pretty sure it's not that fragile," Feline says, pulling his hand up to touch it, but I grab his arm just before he does.

"Crystal, not rock, and I don't think we should touch it, what if you drop it. We were already cutting it close when Harley almost shot it at the museum, we need to stop being careless and proceed with caution," I continue, adding in another jab at Harley.

"Hey—" Harley began.

"Look, we can either just sit here arguing about it, or we could just figure out what the hell the deal is with it and we can move on. If it's nothing special, no harm no foul, we'll just give to the people and collect our money. But if there is even the slightest chance that we can get some more money from it, I want to squeeze every last penny out of it," Frost says, cutting off Harley, I release Feline's arm, realizing that Frost has a point and Feline goes to grab it.

I notice that the closer Feline's hand gets to it, the crystal seems to glow a little. Something was wrong with this rock. I felt a slither in my body, warning me of danger. This crystal was not just a quartz, like I'd assumed. It may look like one, but that wasn't its true nature. This was something not of the natural world and the Green was warning me that making contact with it was not in our best interests,

"Wait, Feline, I don't—" but by the time I could get it out, he'd already picked it up and the crystal turned a bright yellow, searing his hands,

"Mutha—" Feline yelped out, immediately throwing the crystal upwards as if it was hot coal, Harley was the first to try and catch it. I had hardwood floors in my kitchen and if that crystal hit the ground, it would crack on impact. Harley caught it midair, but the moment it touched his hands, it glowed reddish purple, searing his hand too and he mirrored the same action as Feline, throwing it back in the air.

Against the Green's warning, my hand was the next to try and catch the crystal, jumping from my seat to grab it, and the moment it touched my hands the color grew green and I felt like I'd touched boiling water. Just like them, I threw it back in the air and Frost was the one to catch it this time.

He grabbed it as it glowed a fierce blue color and his irises shimmered white for a moment, as his hand holding the crystal went misty and we could see him counteracting the crystal's heat with his ice. The crystal stayed blue for a moment before fading back to white.

"What the hell was that?!" Feline asked, looking at his hand, there was no welt or anything that would signify a burn. Harley and I looked at ours and we couldn't find a mark either.

"Well, whatever it was, I'm guessing that's the reason it was guarded so well. Hey, you got something that can hold this? I don't know how long I can keep this thing on ice. I can feel it warming up again," Frost said, his hand clenched into a fist around the quartz, consistently refreezing it as it started to glow again, I walked over into my bedroom and pulled open one of my drawers. I pulled out one of my mini burlap baggies and brought it over to him.

"I don't think a bag is gonna keep whatever this thing is contained, Ivy," Frost says, holding it tighter.

"It's not just a bag, it's made from a special type of fiber that was crafted specifically to hold dangerous minerals. I use it for some of my more volatile powders since crystal is a type of mineral it should have the same effect, just put it in," I say, holding open the baggie and Frost looks at it, still not convinced.

"What if it falls through? We barely got away with robbing a museum without coming in contact with The Bat, trying to rob a bank with her roaming around the city will land us a straight ticket to Arkham. This crystal is the only surefire way for us to get our money, scot-free, we can't afford to lose it if it breaks," Frost says, still struggling to keep it contained.

"Well, unless you want to hold that thing all night, we should at least try it, if it can burn us, there's no telling what it could do to the table," I say, gesturing the bag to Frost who still looks at it, unconvinced.

"If we would have just left it in the case and called them, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first pla—" Harley starts.

"Shut it!" I yell at him, and he looks at me, a little hurt, and I turn back to Frost, not caring at this present moment,

"Just put it in the bag and hope for the best, we don't have all night to debate this."

Frost looks at the crystal in his hands, still glowing on and off, being frozen and unfreezing itself over and over again. He looks at me and I nod. He shakes his head and walks over to me.

"You better be right about this," he says just before he drops the crystal in the bag, the moment it made contact with the inside of the bag, a wave of white energy emanated from it, and the force was so great it thrust the four of us backward.

I was thrust into the wall behind me, but before I hit it, the Green sent a few vines from beneath me to catch my body midair and steadied me.

Feline, Harley, and Frost weren't so lucky as they hit their various spots and struggled to get up a little, rocked by what had happened. I quickly ran over to the bag on the floor and looked inside. I thanked Mother Green that the white rock was still inside and tied the bag close with the piece of brown rope hanging from the side of it.

"Okay, you know what, fuck it, this ain't worth it. I don't know what the fuck that crystal is or what it does, nor do I care. I'm going home. I got my ass kicked by literally the same guy over and over again, my hand burnt, and now this shit. So you know what, I don't give a fuck about what that thing is as long as we get paid," Feline said, cracking his shoulder back into place as he walked over to the door,

"Feline, wait—" Harley tried to reason.

"Nope, sorry Harley, can't do it. This shit is just too fucking weird and I'm too tired to deal with this right now, I'll talk to you guys later, I'm going home and going to bed," Feline walked out.

"Can't blame him, that has to be some kind of defense weapon or something. Probably government grade. We can't even touch it, and that thing took a lot of energy to contain, whatever it is, I'm not interested in exploring it anymore than we already have. I don't know about you guys, but last time I checked, we can't split 40,000 dollars if we're all dead," Frost said, walking toward the door.

We all hear the distant hum of Feline's motorcycle speeding off, he turns back to the two of us,

"Whatever that thing is, it's dangerous, we need to make that drop as soon as possible. Don't forget to text them about the spot Harley, I don't want that thing around us any longer than it has to be."

Harley nods, and Frost nods at me, telling me goodbye and closes the door behind him. Harley goes over to my living room couch, to get his phone and I walk over to my cabinet on the floor. I open it up, revealing nothing inside but soil and wave my hand.

I call to the Green beneath and feel the ground rumbling my vines surface, carrying a makeshift box created from a log. I open it and place the bagged crystal inside and close it.

I wave my hand again and the log is encased in my vines and I blow a little from my mouth causing the vines to pull the log beneath the surface of the soil. I close my cabinet, the merchandise safely secure, and go to sweep up the broken glass from the case. Harley walks over to me, and I see the look in his eye. It's filled with lust, but I'm not paying him any attention. Still fuming from earlier tonight.

"I just texted our 'client, were good to go for the drop. Feline and Frosty are gone for the night, so...that just leaves you...and me...and—" he says, walking up behind me, he tries to grip my waist and I yank away.

"Alright Ivy, what gives! You've been bitchy, shady, and now you're snatching away from me?! What's wrong?!" He yells at me and I turn to him, my green eyes ablaze with fury.

"Don't you EVER fucking do that to me again!" I scream, my voice shaking with emotion.

"Do what? Touch you?" he asks, confused.

"No! At the museum! You just jumped off that fucking thing and just expected me to catch you?! You didn't ask me or warn me, you just fucking jumped and my heart almost exploded! You were this close Harley, THIS CLOSE to falling. If I didn't—If I was even a second too late—you would've—you could've—" I could barely get it out, my voice was cracking so much from emotion. I was so angry, scared, and hurt all at once.

"Hey," Harley said, trying to come closer to me, I pulled away from him and he gripped my arms and pulled me to him,

"Hey! I'm okay Ivy, I'm right here, everything's okay."

"But what if it wasn't," I countered.

"But nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing happened because I knew you would save me."

"How? How could you be so certain that I didn't miss?" I asked, still confused and still crying.

"Because I just knew. We're best friends, Ivy, you're my brother if I ever did have one. I trust you with my life, without a shadow of a doubt. We're connected, here," he says, putting his hand up to my heart, and I look him in the eye, and he smiles at me,

"Don't know how, but we are. So when I jumped off, I knew you'd catch me. I could feel it. You always catch me."

I looked at him, and the surety in his pale green eyes caught me off guard. Even with everything that he's been through with me and the Joker, even after he lost his mind with that man, there were moments like this, moments like this where I'd see the old Hartley behind his often wild eyes.

My Dean coming to the surface. It wasn't that I wanted old Hartley back, or that I wanted us to be like we used to, it was just that sometimes, sometimes with all the craziness that is Harley Quinn and the Joker, seeing my best friend be real like this, even through his insanity, it always made me choke up a bit. I cared about him so much and he trusted me totally.

"So can you stop being a worry wart and play with me. Getting thrown into that wall made me so hot, I wanna have some fun," Harley says, returning to his child-like psychotic self, running his hands down my chest as he pushed us back toward my bed.

"Please, just be careful Harley, I don't want you to get hurt," I add, as he pushes me onto the bed, lust darkening his eyes.

"Trust me, Ivy, I'm used to a little pain," he says, crawling atop me, and immediately my anger is refueled.

"You know we still haven't talked about—ah," I yelp a little as Harley suckles my neck, knowing all too well, how quickly it affects me. My dick was already growing hard as he licks and sucks on it, trying to distract me.

"Harley...we need to—oh fuck—you and—oh god," I struggle out, but he moves down, sucking on my nipples as his hands trail down my body to my dick. Part of me cursed myself at the fact that I don't wear much clothing.

"Listen, Ivy, I know how you feel about Mr. J and I, but I love him, and I'm happy. He makes me happy, Ivy. Sure we're a little odd, but I love what we do. I love the death, the respect, and I love my Mr. J. And right now, I want to love on my Ivy, I," Kiss. "Want," Kiss. "To Make You," Kiss. "Feel Good," Kiss.

"You're cheating—oh—you're just...trying to—ah—change the topic," I say, as Harley finally makes his way down to my hard dick, mouthing it through my speedos.

"How would your Mr. J feel about—ah—this?" I say, trying to redirect, and failing.

"You may not like each other, but he knows what you mean to me, besides, he has his fun with girls, and I have my fun with my very, very, special man," he says, pulling my speedos off.

Even though I was changing the conversation, my primal instincts kicked in, because as much as I wanted to talk about the problem, I wanted him to suck my dick just as badly. So against my rational mind, my horny brain lifted my waist as Harley pulled them all the way off, nestling his face against my hard cock that slapped against my stomach when he pulled them off.

"I thought you said we were brothers," I joke back, seductively, my rational mind finally leaving the station. 

"Not by blood," Harley said as he took one long lick up my shaft and I was undone. Anything I wanted to talk about or thought about talking about was immediately erased the moment his tongue made contact. It was only last week that we slept together, we didn't do it often, but whenever we did, it was like we were teenagers all over again.

When Harley was sane, we'd agreed that sleeping together was not the best thing for our relationship, but all that went out of the window when he took his chemical dip for the Joker.

Ever since he'd lost his mind, all his rational thoughts and moral hang-ups went out of the window. Harley was down for a good time, anytime he was horny, and if his Mr. J wasn't available, he had no problem unleashing his sexual appetite on me, and I was a willing participant.

Ever since he'd become Harley Quinn, more than just his physical abilities were enhanced, his sexuality had become almost hyper-charged and he was always down to fuck. So when his beautiful lips wrapped around the tip of my dick in that all too familiar way that it does.

When that tongue licked my slit and he pulled his lips over his teeth, to make sure he didn't scrape as he slid his warm, wet mouth over my cock, I was in extasy. I couldn't help the moan that escaped my mouth as my member was encased in the wetness that was his willing, relaxed mouth.

He deep throated me with ease, even though my member was very much so above average, he took it like a champ and I was in heaven. I'd had great blowjobs before, men and women, but none of them could compare to Harley. He was my first and my favorite. I don't know if it was because of how I felt about him or because he was genuinely just good at it, whatever the reason, he was the best.

He was sucking my dick slowly at first, making sure I could feel my dick slowly enter and leave his mouth with ease. Then he slowly picked up the pace and I trailed my hand to the back of his neck, guiding my dick into his mouth over and over and over again. It was perfection. He bobbed his head up and down, up and down, and soon I let his head go and let him work me over. I just leaned back and let him have his way with me.

He pulled my dick out of his mouth and started licking at my shaft. I felt him suck on my balls a little, his tongue trailing, lower and lower, and soon he was at my taint, licking the area between my asshole and my balls and I felt him travel lower. I hooked my legs with my wrist, opening myself up to him and watched his eyes light up as I winked my hole at him and he ducked in, kissing each of my cheeks before kissing my hole.

I shivered in anticipation as I felt him slowly breathe on my asshole and felt him stick his tongue out and give me one, small lick and I nearly broke at the intimate touch, but before he could lap again, I pushed him away.

He looked at me, confused as I came up to him and kissed him on the lips. His confusion melted away as I started making out with him and I found my way around him and pushed him on the bed. He lay there looking at me, and I pull down his tights and pull his dick in my mouth. I knew he wanted to know why I stopped him from eating me out, but all his questions vanished the moment I took him in my mouth in one gulp.

I loved getting my ass ate, and I loved getting fucked, especially by Harley, but tonight wasn't the night for that. Tonight, Harley deserved something special. Something different. So I sucked him, bobbing, humming, and deepthroating his amazing cock, sending him into the sky. I trailed down, licking and sucking on his balls and I lifted his legs, and I could hear Harley's breath hitch.

I nestled my face between his ass cheeks and kissed his hole just as he kissed mine. He wiggled a little, and I knew that he was in the same predicament I was in when he did it to me. I looked at his pale pink hole. And I kissed it again, and he wiggled.

I knew this was something that wasn't done to him frequently. Harley preferred being on the giving end of ass eating, but from time to time he let himself be the recipient. I knew he liked it, he liked it too much, and that was the reason he didn't let me or his Mr. J, do it that often. So whenever he did let me, I considered it almost like a delicacy.

It was Harley's turn to sit back, relax, and let me taste that hot ass he keeps flaunting around in those tights. I press my tongue against it and he whimpers and I'm so happy to hear it. I kiss it again, French kissing his hole as if it was Harley's lips and he's yelping in pleasure.

"Ivy...Ivy, fuck...fuck I love it....oh fuck...oh," hearing him whimper my name like that only made me tongue him deeper. I wanted him to be a mess when I'm through with him. He got my dick hard, and now it's only fair that we both cum like no tomorrow. I lap at his hole, hard. Getting as deep in his ass as I can.

"Oh fuck, Sam! Oh, fuck—oh fuck—oh!" I hear him scream out, hearing him same my name, my real name, usually made me mad, but not now. Hearing him say that only made me want to make him scream my name louder. So I stiffened my tongue and pushed it in his ass as deep as it would go, in and out, in and out, in and out until I was tongue fucking him. I was fucking him with my tongue, as I held his legs up and he was writhing.

"Please, Sam! Oh god! Oh god! Please Sammy, please fuck me! Please oh god—can't take it! I can't take it!" he says and I stop, taking one last swipe of his hole before I come up to his dick and suck on it some more.

"Oh fuck Sam! Turnover, turnover right now so I can fuck you! I don't wanna cum in your mouth," he begs me and I smile, taking my mouth off his dick.

"Why would I do that? You said you wanted me to fuck you, so...I think I'll take you up on that," I say, smiling deviously. Harley's face lights up and he is in complete surprise.

"You mean it?! Don't fuck with me, Ivy!? Are you serious?!" He warned, and I laughed, knowing all too well that I hadn't fucked Hartley in years. Not since we were teenagers, and even then, we'd only ever done it twice.

"Well," I say, crawling up on him and lining my dick up with his hole, pressing the head of it against it, applying the slightest pressure,

"Is this serious enough for you?"

"Oh fuck, please Ivy, please, please, please, put it in. Please put it in," he begs and I laugh, smiling as I push my dick into him. Fuck, he was tight, even after being regularly fucked by the Joker, he was still tight as a virgin when I pressed inside and I watched his eyes as they went wide in pleasure. I was finally inside him, fully sheathed and he was staring at me, in a mix of shock and pure ecstasy.

"Is there a reason you only save all this dick for one gender?" he asks, his voice breathless as he adjusts to my size. I wasn't huge, but I was big and it would take him a second or two to get used to it.

"I told you, I fuck girls, guys fuck me," I say, trying to maintain my composure so as not to explode inside him. He felt so fucking good and I felt like I might cum if he so much as shifted. Even though he was adjusting to me, I was taking just as much time to adjust to him.

I've always bottomed for guys, not because I didn't like fucking, it's just a weird thing I do. I fuck pussy and I take dick, it's just the way I like things to be. But Harley, he wasn't just any guy, he was...he was Harley. And being inside him right now, that was what I wanted, and that was what I needed right now.

"Well consider me one damn lucky guy," he says, wrapping his arms around my back, pulling me so close to him that I couldn't help but bottom out in his ass,

"God, I miss this dick, fuck...it's been too long...I almost forgot how big you are."

"Shut up," I say playfully, blushing and laughing a little,

"I see why all your girlfriends were dickmatized, damn you're so big and thick. I'm so full. Fuck, you fill me up so good," he says, and I blush even harder.

"Whatever," I say, we both laugh a little and I feel Harley tighten around me and I almost forget what we are supposed to be doing. I look him in the eye, and he looks at me. For a moment, just for a moment, he looks at me with this look.

Not just one of lust, but of something else. Something that I'd only ever seen once before with him, it was the look he'd give the Joker.

For a moment he looked at me and he pulled me in for a kiss. It wasn't a hungry kiss. It was a gentle kiss. A gentle kiss that made me think for a moment, that Harley's feelings for me were deeper than just best friend/fuck buddy. I looked in his eyes, and I saw it, but just like before as quickly as it came, it went. Harley was back and he smiled at me, his eyes hooded over in lust.

"Fuck me," he said, and at that command, I pulled out a little a thrust back into him, hitting his prostate on my first thrust. He screamed out in pleasure and I yelped out too, not realizing how good it felt to be inside him. How good he would feel around me. I thrust into him again, and he yelped out, and I kept a slow pace as I fucked him.

Making sure to fuck him slowly but surely, forcing him to feel every inch of my cock, every sway of my hips, and every hit of his prostate. He felt amazing and from his screams and his breath hitching, I knew that he was having a good time too. I had to hurry this along. This was the reason why I didn't usually fuck guys.

Harley helped me figure out that when I fucked guys, I came pretty quickly, it was just a combination of the tightness and the power that just became too much for me. So it didn't surprise me that only a few thrusts in, I was already feeling myself becoming undone. I hated cumming fast, but Harley just felt so fucking good, so fucking tight, and so fucking beautiful.

And the fact that he'd sucked my dick before this too, didn't help my case at all. I spit in my hand and started jerking Harley's dick too, in congruence with my thrust that was becoming more and more erratic.

"Oh fuck Ivy, oh fuck, I'm gonna—oh fuck—I'm gonna cu—" before he could finish, he was already releasing ropes of cum all over his chest in mine, screaming out as he spasmed. His anal walls spasming and tightening around my dick almost milking my cock to climax and it didn't take long before I was cumming inside him.

I felt like I was coming apart, my sight sparked a little with little white dots, and I collapsed atop Harley, my body and being spent.

I was breathing heavy into Harley's chest, and he was breathing just as hard into my neck and I pulled myself out of him, one last stream of cum erupting from my dick onto his as the aftereffect of pulling out of him hit me. I dropped to his side and he wiped up a little of my semen that landed on his chest and brought it to his mouth and sucked on it.

"Mmmm, it's like icing," he says, pulling his hand from his mouth and wrapping it on my softening dick, and pressing his thumb along the semen shaft to get a few straggling drops of my cum out and putting it to his lips, suckling it,

"Fuck you taste so good."

I look at him and smile as I wipe some of his cum from his chest and put it in my mouth, tasting the salty liquid,

"You're not so bad yourself," I respond, coming over to lick some more of his cum from his stomach and he laughs and he wraps an arm around me and we just lay there, spent. Cum soaked, and definitely in the sticky situation I'm glad we got ourselves into yet again.

It didn't take long before the two of us drifted into sleep. Completely satisfied and satiated.


	2. Chapter 2

I was shivering in my sleep. I couldn't remember when exactly it started, all I knew was that I felt this coldness that spread over me, shooting through my veins and body unlike any other. I tried to ignore it, I tried to push it way, snuggle closer to Harley, pull the covers more tightly on my body, but nothing was working.

It was like someone turned the AC on negative 10, and no matter how hard I tried nothing I was doing to warm up was working. I tried to doze off again, tried to will myself back to sleep, but the coldness only got worse until I felt this fierce white hot sting all over my body that forced me to nearly leap out of bed in pain.

I was severely disoriented looking around my surroundings and suddenly all the white hot sting vanished and the coldness disappeared. I was blinking hard, trying to clear my foggy vision, but I felt like I couldn't see anything. But that wasn't what scared me.

What scared me was the emptiness I felt inside. Even though my body wasn't cold anymore, I felt a deep void within me, a feeling of absolute isolation inside, as if there was nothing in the world that I could love or could love me.

That scared me. I always felt the Green, no matter what, she was always inside me, her energy always flowing through me. I never felt alone, even in my own body, I would always feel her. I tried to yell out, tried to call out to Harley to wake up, but my throat felt oddly scratchy and stiff.

It was like my vocal cords were getting heavier, and I could almost feel a small vibration on it. It only lasted for a second before the feeling faded, but my voice was still settling, it was like my body was adjusting. I blinked a few more times and my vision started to clear up enough so that I could see clearly.

My sight may have been restored, but it was still nighttime, so I ran to my bathroom as quickly as I could and flicked on the light.

Something was wrong something was terribly wrong. I looked into the mirror, and screamed while throwing my hands up in surprise, the moment I did, I felt an energy pulsate from the them and saw two ice shards fly from them and shatter my sink.

I stumbled back as the water came spewing from the sink and tried put my hands toward it in an effort to try and stop it. I didn't even have time enough to try and fix it before my hands became misty. I felt my irises chill and watched as the fountain of spewing water crystallized in less that a second. I stumbled back from the sink and tried to gather what little understanding I could.

What I saw in the mirror was not who I was, not even close. I looked down at my arms and saw my pale white skin staring back at me. I was almost as pale as Harley, but with a bluish tint to it. My reflection is what frightened me most.

My deep red hair was now shock white, my lips were completely void of color, sharing the same bluish undertone as if there was no blood circulation, and my irises were white, glowing fiercely in the low fluorescent bathroom lighting.

I tried shaking my head, tried shaking myself a little, to make sure I wasn't dreaming, because there was no way that Harley could still be asleep through all of this. I had to be dreaming, or accurately, experiencing the worst nightmare possible. But every time I closed my eyes and reopened them, I was still the same, pale and white.

"Harley!" I scream out, my voice echoing in the air, a chill seeming to follow it.

There was a creaking noise, like someone walking on ice, and I realized that this was my vocal cords felt so heavy at first, they were frozen, and speaking, makes them crack. I was fearful that the cracking would be painful, but it wasn't, it was like my body adjusted to this ability as if this was normal for it.

But this wasn't. This wasn't normal. I was Poison Ivy. But somehow, someway, I'd become...Killer Frost. This wasn't happening, this couldn't be happening, why is this happening. I ran over to the bed where Harley was lying and he was sound asleep, or at least it looked that way.

"Harley wake up!" I yell out, the echoey chill following behind my words.

He doesn't move, doesn't budge, and for a moment, it didn't even seem like he was breathing. I looked again, fear running through my veins for a moment until I saw his chest move up and down a little. He wasn't dead. But there was no way he couldn't hear me.

"Harley! Get up!" I scream out again, reaching out to try and shake the bed, my anger spiking a little, and I watched as a stream off ice shot up my bed and hit my headboard, missing Harley by an inch.

I quickly stepped back from the bed, tucking my hands under my arms, fearful that I might accidentally kill him if I don't get myself under control. But even with the sound of the chill, even with the frost on my headboard and my yelling, Harley wasn't moving.

Something was wrong, and if what's happening to me is any sort of reference point, I needed to figure out what was going on. I quickly went over to try and pick up my phone at the table to call Frost or Feline.

The moment I touched, I watched my hands mist over and before I could drop it, my phone was frozen solid, sparking at the sudden cold.

"Dammit!" I scream out, shaking my hands in frustration and two more shards of ice fly out of hands and into my window above my sink, shattering it.

I throw my hands to my side, hoping that if I'm not waving my hands around I won't trigger these powers. However, that proved to be ill advised. Because the moment I threw my hands to my side, I felt and energy pass through them igniting a cold blast from both hands and catapulted me into the air, and I hit my head on my own ceiling before falling back to the ground.

"What the fuck is happening to me?!" I scream out, rubbing my head, feeling this power ignite again and my other hand that was on the floor started to freeze the ground beneath me.

Just then I heard a noise at the door, it was muffled as if someone was coming up to it, struggling. In that moment, I was terrified, this could have been Penguins doing or Scarecrow.

We weren't exactly on speaking terms after I killed most of their men at one of the chemical factories at Gotham. This could be their chance at revenge, turning me into my friend, trying to throw me off my game.

Even though I doubted it, and the idea seemed farfetched, I wasn't ruling anything out, until I could figure out what was happening to me, I didn't want to take any chances. I didn't know how to work these powers, or what exactly they could do, but I wasn't about to be killed on my own territory by some deranged bird and a fear fanatic.

If I was going down, I was going down kicking and screaming. I heard someone shaking the doorknob trying to get in, and I held up my hands defensively.

"Get off, get off, get off, get off, get off," I heard the strange voice saying as they pushed their way inside, before I could recognize who it was, my fear ignited the ice shards and two were sent flying in the direction of the unknown assailant.

I saw him jump back a little, using his hands to block his face and two panels of bark shot up from the floorboards impaled by the shards of ice.

I quickly put my arms down and got up to get a better look at the person hiding behind the bark. He pulled his hands from his face and the panels descended back into the earth and I looked at the man standing in front of me.

Even though his skin hued over green and normally white hair was now red, I knew all to well who was standing before me

"Frost?" I say in surprise, still not completely used to my voice echoing like this, he looks at me strangely looking me over, starting to recognize me too.

"Ivy?" he asks, his voice sounding normal, which was sort of disconcerting. I've only ever heard him in his echoey voice, and now...now I was the one with his voice.

"Ivy, what the hell is going on?" he asks, trying to move away but my vines followed him, reaching out for him to coo them. But he kept resisting.

"Make em' stop Ivy!" he yells frustratedly.

This only makes them need him more, I walk over and try to pet them, but they retract from my hands, my cool mist causing them to pull away. My heart ached a little at their reaction, how can they not see it's me. How could they not sense who I am.

"They're just trying to help you Frost, they sway to your will," I say, trying to get him to understand.

"My will is to get them to leave me alone, but they just keep going, now go away! Go away!" he yells, and my vines merely recede a little, fearful.

"Don't scream at them like that! Just ask them to leave and they'll go," I spout out, angrily. I could feel my hands starting to mist as the energy inside me picked up. Frost looked at me annoyed,

"They're your 'babies' or whatever, not mine, why don't you just tell them to go," he says, trying to skirt away from the vines that still bend to his will, reaching out to him in confusion.

"Because if you haven't already noticed, I'm not currently equip with that ability at this present moment," I argue back sarcastically, holding up my misty hands to emphasize the point.

"Oh yeah, I noticed! How about you give me my powers back and you deal with these—these things, ugh, it's like they're crawling all over me," Frost retorts, shivering his body in disgust as the vines from the outside start to make their way in through the shattered window towards him.

"Trust me! I'd gladly give them back if I knew how! Just—just stop running, it will only make them more anxious, they can sense your fear so they think you need their protection," I say trying to stay coherent, but for some reason, my head was getting cloudy, I felt lightheaded, but I shook it off to try and keep myself steady.

"Okay well, how do I make them not anxious then! What do I do?!" he yells at me, looking at my children fearfully, and I watch as more of them pile in, erratic in movement, searching for danger and some directing themselves toward me, not knowing who or what to protect Frost from.

"You need to calm yourself! Make them feel assured, stop resisting and let them near you! If you don't they'll just keep coming until they feel like you're safe. Just close your eyes and focus on calming yourself. Let your stillness spread to them.

You can't control the Green, you petition it, you ask for it's aid. So stop demanding them to stop and coax them into stillness. Coax them into submission. You are their father, and they are your children," I say, trying my best to explain how my powers work to Frost.

He looks at me his eyes erratic still, looking around a the barrage of my children all surrounding him and me. I feel a vine slither around my legs, and some around my arms and I try to keep myself as still as possible, knowing that even the slightest movement might cause them to see me as the cause of Frost's distress.

"I don't—I don't think I can," he says, and I feel the vines tighten around me,

"Stop thinking. Will yourself to be still and calm, will yourself to hear their words, listen to them...what are they saying to you. They are in your mind, in your body, the crawling you feel is their essence inside you.

Stop fighting it or you'll just be more uncomfortable. Allow it to settle inside you, allow the voice of the Green to call to you, what is she saying, what are my children saying," I say, as the vines start to slither their way around my neck and I have to calm my own anger at the fact that I cannot sense the Green.

It breaks my heart to have someone else commune with my babies, but if either of us hope to figure out what's happening and how to fix it, I had to help him figure this out, regardless of my anger at the situation.

I watch him close his eyes and unclench his fist. I feel my vines still almost instantly. All my children, still at his calmness.

"Okay, Frost, now breathe. In and out, feel their voices in you, let them talk to you, let them ask you, then speak to them, tell them that you're okay and that they can leave," I instruct him, even though I was struggling myself to keep the breath in my own lungs.

I felt like I was about to pass out at any moment. I didn't understand why I was so lightheaded, even though I was breathing normally, but it felt like every single breath I took was making me more and more out of it.

I see him take a deep breath, and then breathe out, and watch as he finally hears my children calling to them, he looks confused at first, but I answer his unspoken question,

"Let them in Frost, you'll be able to hear them more clearly the more you embrace them. Their voices are loud because all of them are trying to communicate at once, just slow them down, let them speak as one and not many. Connect to them as their father to hear them speak as your children," I continue, as much as it pained me to see someone else father my children, I had no choice, I had to protect them from Frost's recklessness.

Even though I couldn't sense them myself, I knew they were afraid and confused. So even though I couldn't tell them myself, I had to make they knew that everything was going to be okay. Frost and I just needed to figure out what was happening to us.

"They're saying...they're saying...they don't know what to do. They think I'm in danger," he says, finally hearing them.

"Tell them they're okay, tell them that you're okay. Not just with your words, but with your heart and mind. Just like human children, they will know if you're lying, they can feel the waver in your voice.

You must be confident and true, assure them that everything is okay," I say again, trying to keep myself steady, but my head was becoming foggier by the moment.

Frost breathes in and out again calming himself. The vines unclench their grip a little and I can feel them face him. When he reopens his eyes, they are completely black as he speaks to them.

"I'm okay...you can leave now," he says, and all my vines recede, returning to the soil, resting and I didn't even realize that it was my vines that were supporting me because the moment they left, I fell to the ground. I look up at Frost whose eyes returned to their natural state and he pulls me up.

"Okay, Obi Wan, my turn, you need to stop breathing and push all the air out of your lungs," he says, pulling me over to the chair, but I was barely able to stand, I just felt like I was losing consciousness.

"Wha—wha—are you talking about," I say, breathing still, which only added to my consciousness slipping away.

"Stop breathing Ivy, you don't need to, and if you keep pulling in more air, you'll suffocate yourself, so stop breathing," he asserted and I shook my head a little to get my head together and did as he instructed, and to my surprise, it worked a little. I stopped breathing, and that seemed to help more than ever.

There was still discomfort, but my head was starting to clear in seconds. It was the exact opposite of when you hold your breath for a long period of time and then breath, that same kind of release.

"Alright, there you go, now, push out all the air in your lungs out, all at once, okay," he said, moving out of the way, and I did as he told me.

I felt my eyes glow white as I forced the air from my lungs and watched as the sideways tornado of chilly air, filled the floor and wall, freezing it solid. I looked to Frost confused, and he smiled as he patted me on the back.

"Now breathe in just a little and that will be enough for a while," he instructed and I did, I took in a quick breath of air and stopped and felt my body still, no longer needing to breathe.

"Why did that work?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"Because, my insides are in a state of perpetual freeze. Which means I don't need to breathe that often, maybe once every ten to twenty minutes," he explains, I still look at him, confused,

"My lungs freeze oxygen that I intake in my lungs slowly, and once the carbon dioxide within the air unfreezes, I breathe out, and repeat the process. It's why my breath is always icy and my eyes glow.

My body is constantly freezing itself over and over, again. It hurt a little when I first got my powers, but after a few minutes, my body adjusted and it became second nature. I adjusted, just like you are now."

Even as he said it, I could feel my natural instinct to breath every few seconds fade as my body adjusted to this new form of extended breaths.

"Great to know, but I don't want to adjust, I want the Green, and I want my powers back," I say, no longer caring about how Frost's powers worked, at this point, I just wanted to get rid of them and get mine back.

"Same here, I don't know how you deal with this Ivy, I feel like something is always watching me, or like in me. Like, I don't feel alone in my own skin," he says, and I envy him for that feeling. It's been so long since I felt loneliness like this. It was like there was a pit of hatred inside me that couldn't thaw.

Like my own heart was frozen solid, allowing no one entry. I hated feeling alone. I hated it with every fiber of my being. It brought me back to dark places in my own mind and I didn't know how much longer I'd be able to deal with it.

It was the reason why I loved the Green so much. The Green was inside me, she was around me, my children were always there, whenever I needed then. I was never alone and that's what I was missing the most at this moment.

"Speak for yourself, I don't know how you deal with this Frost. I feel so...cold, and not just physically," I add.

"Yeah, that's what a frozen heart will do to you. Mine's been frozen for years, almost a decade ago, so that I could never feel love again, and now, hear I am, filled with so many emotions that I can't—that I don't want to deal with right now, so if you would kindly give me my powers back so I can get back to that, it would be great," Frost admitted, I'd heard his voice crack a little, a saw him try to force it back.

I've never seen Frost show any vulnerability, ever. He was just as his name pegged him, frosty. He cared for no one and showed no affection for anyone besides himself which made him a great partner for us.

We knew where he stood, even though he worked with us sometimes, Frost only showed up when there was something he could get out of it. Sure, he was friends with us, but it was always circumstantial. Much like most of our alliances.

With the exception of Harley and me, Feline and Frost only associated with us when it benefited them. We had each other's backs when we were together, but other than that, it was every man for himself. I suppose that since we were the bad guys, true friendship was out of the question.

However, that still didn't change the fact that seeing Frost vulnerable like this, even for a moment, was shocking. Apparently the Green was affecting him, and all that was telling me was that we needed to get this fixed. We needed to figure out how to get back to normal, fast. 

"I'd love to, but I have no idea how this happened, I mean, one minute Harley and I are sleeping together and in the middle of the night I just wake up like this?!" I said, gesturing to my face and body.

"Well that doesn't help, the same thing happened to me. I was in my cooler at my place and suddenly I just woke up, shivering and breathing like a regular person," he said in disbelief,

"Me! Killer-fucking-frost actually got cold?! That's literally impossible, and yet there I was, cold as fuck and then these vines just started bursting through cooler, trying to wrap around me and shit and I just ran as fast as I could to get to you."

"But this doesn't make any sense, why would we suddenly wake up with each other's powers? Our abilities came from very different, very specific places, there is no way that they would just flip at random. It just doesn't add up.

I mean last time I checked, you weren't poisoned by your botany professor with ancient herbs and buried alive?"

"Nope, and I don't think you were forcibly injected with an experimental serum that makes your cells adaptable and thrown into blizzard, so what gives? How did our powers just suddenly pull some supernatural freaky Friday?"

"There's only one answer," I say, piecing it together in my head, cursing myself at not figuring it out sooner because it all made so much sense now.

"That fucking crystal!" he said, catching up with me, in my mental deduction.

"It has to be, there's no other explanation," I say getting up and going over to my trashcan, trying my best not to freeze it shut as I started rummaging inside.

"What are you looking for, I thought you said the crystal was the problem, shouldn't you be getting that," he calls over, getting up to come closer to me.

"Yeah, but I think I saw something on the case that Feline broke, it said something in Latin, it looked like an explanation or like a um, like a—"

"Warning?" Frost cuts in. 

"Yeah, maybe, right now it's our only clue in trying to figure out how to fix this. If I could just....there!" I exclaim, feeling the gold stained plate in my hand and I feel my hands grow misty and it starts to freeze over. I quickly drop it.

"Shit!" I scream out, and my hands mist over again, the cold energy starting to pulsate from them.

"You need to calm down Ivy, my powers are heavily connected to my emotions, sort of like yours, but on steroids. You feel too much one way or the other and you release ice. You have to focus your emotions in order to stop releasing so much cold energy," he explains.

"But I just froze it," I said, picking up the completely iced over gold description plate from the museum, the words were illegible,

"I can't even read it."

"Well, I don't usually tell people this but...but I can unfreeze things too. I don't do it because I don't like what I have to feel to make it work. I'd much rather prefer things to icy than thawed, but I can do it. Which means so can you," he admits, reluctantly.

"Really? You expect me to unfreeze something when I barely know how to use your freezing, let alone something like that? You just said you don't even do it!" I yell back in frustration, earning another cold mist over the already frozen plate.

"I said don't do it, doesn't mean that I don't know how. It's not as hard as you think and it's looking like you don't have a choice because either you unfreeze it or we're stuck like this," he asserts and I roll my eyes and try to calm myself down.

He was right, anger wasn't going to fix this situation, whatever was happening to us, we needed to work together because I can't stay like this forever.

"Alright, how do I do it?" I ask, annoyed but I conceded.

"Just pull the ice back, try to find something inside of you that's warm, something that you love and let that warmth thaw the ice," he said and I put the frozen gold stained rectangle in both my hands and close my eyes.

I try my best to pull some slither of emotion from the coldness within me. I think of the Green and my babies, focusing on them as hard as I can, but it's not working, in fact, it's actually having the opposite effect. It's freezing it more.

"Okay, Ivy stop fucking around and think, if you freeze it anymore it will shatter, you have to dig deep, not just surface level. Dig deeper and think of what you love and pull the ice back, you can do it, come on," he says.

"I am!" I retort.

"Obviously not, because if you were, it would be thawing, come on, Ivy, I know you don't like thinking about love, who does? Love does nothing but hurt you—it makes you weak.

But you have to think about it Ivy, I need to be me again Ivy, and you need to be you, so we have to figure out how to reverse this. So just do it," he says, his voice wavering, and I could tell that he was hurting.

Being connected to the Green allows me to feel the earth and all its glory, and the emotions that hide beneath the soil, but for someone like Frost.

Someone whose trained himself not to love anyone, going so far as to freeze his own heart, having these emotions couldn't be easy. Having his solitude inside me was weighing on me by the second.

So against the frozen heart in my chest, against my own personal feelings that I still didn't want to face yet, I thought of the thing that I loved most. I thought of what I loved and watched as the plate in my hands started to unfreeze.

The object started to mist within my grasp and my hands absorbed the ice. I hated the fact that it worked because now that meant something else. Something a fact that I wasn't yet ready to face yet, I pushed the thought down and focused on the task at hand.

"You did it," he said, almost half surprised,

"What did you—"

"Not important," I answered his unspoken question as I got up from the floor and brought the gold stained plate under the light, Frost followed suit.

"It says, _'Attingunt vitrum duobus, nova calceamenta in mille et non ambulabunt. Imperium in virtute. Saeculum operatus si aurora ad vesperam Tange ante'_

Great! Where's google translate when you need it. I fried my phone, or more accurately froze it, do you have—"

"When two touch the crystal, they will walk in new shoes. Power for power. Traded forever if day breaks to a new morning, before they touch again," Frost answers, translating the inscription.

I look at him in surprise and he just shrugged his shoulders.

"I was an English major, Latin was one of my favorite electives," he said dismissively.

"Well, why didn't you say anything before?" I asked, confused.

"Because I didn't see the inscription, but I probably should have figured out that something was off with this thing when Harley said what it was. The _Mutatio_ rock. I thought it was just a name," he says sitting down next me.

"What does _mutatio_ mean?" I ask.

"Change. The Change Rock. And I'm guessing, this is how it does that," he says, feeling just as confused as I was."

"So what does this mean, we just need to touch the crystal before tomorrow and everything will be back to normal? Well, if that's all, lets just get the crystal and do it now," I say, walking over to the cabinet where I hid it.

"It's not that simple Ivy, it said when two touch the crystal. It wasn't just the two of us, it was all of us wasn't it?" he asks.

"Yeah, but we're the only two with powers to trade, remember, power for power, Harley doesn't have powers, maybe enhancements, but not full on powers, so come over here so I can show you how to—" before I could finish I heard a groan from my bedroom.

It wasn't a groan of waking, but one of pain. I'd almost forgotten that Harley was still asleep in my bed, but he was knocked out when I last saw him, now he's groaning.

"Harley?" I ask, and I heard him groan out again, this time louder and much more pained. Both Frost and I got up and rushed into the room to see what was wrong with him, and then he started groaning even louder. Frost quickly turned the light on in my bedroom and

I was very frightened at the image I was seeing before me. Harley was shaking, violently on the bed like someone was electrocuting him. He was shaking and shaking and both Frost and I both ran over to try and still him. Just was I was about to touch him, my fear ignited a cold mist from my hands and I pulled my hands away quickly.

"Frost do something! I can't touch him, I think I might freeze him if I did! Harley, Harley wake up, please wake up!" I scream out, my fear igniting my powers and the ice floor beneath me starting to freeze solid.

I'm trying with everything in me, to keep my emotions together, but seeing Harley scream like this, seeing him in pain like this, it was killing me that these powers that weren't even mine were keeping me from helping my friend.

Frost tried to hold him still, but the moment he touched him, Harley went scarily still. Frost quickly leapt back, fearful that he might have done something too and I heard the vines start to break through the other window in my bedroom, called into action by Frost's fear.

Harley took in a sharp, deep breath and as he breathed out, his skin seemed to almost tan. His complexion started to re-pigment, no longer sickly pale, and his hair reverted to it's dirty blonde shade, the platinum blonde with his signature red and blue highlights vanished.

Both Frost and I looked at each other, not understanding what happened, and suddenly Harley jerked up in a sitting position surprising both of us. He sat there for a moment, seemingly frozen in time and Frost and I stepped closer to him, we were both face to face with him,

"Harley," I ask, cautiously, and his eyes shoot open, his pupils, constricted to a small dot, until they re-dilate to their normal size and Harley jerks free, awakened, and he starts breathing ragged as he looks at the two of us.

"Oh god...oh god—oh god," Harley starts to say, his voice shaking with something I haven't heard from Harley since he became Harley Quinn, and that was...remorse.

"Harley, Harley are you okay?" Frost asks.

"What had I done? What did I do? I did that? I did that to that woman, to her kid, to those people, oh god, I killed all those people, oh god no!

No please, please, no, no, no, no, no, please god, what did I—how could I—but I did, but I don't know why—how could—" Harley starts rambling his sentences coming out in broken, choppy apologies to people long since dead.

He's shaking, it's like his mind is becoming unhinged, and not because he's insane, but because he's regrets what he's done. And the psychic effect of that is tearing him apart.

"Get that vial out of my drawer on the left hand side, the vial with the purple powder in it" I direct Frost,

"What are you talking abou—" Frost starts.

"Now! We don't have much time, I'll explain after just get it!" I exclaim and Frost hurriedly walks over to the drawer, where my vines had already met him, pulling the drawer out for him.

Harley was breaking apart, I could see it in his eyes, whatever that crystal did, it's caused him to feel things again, feel things like a normal person and that wasn't who he was.

It was killing him, and I wasn't about to lost my friend, not now, not ever. He was rocking against his legs, cradled in his arms, he looked so lost, so afraid, and his mind wouldn't be able to handle it much longer. He's crying so hard, his body is racked with pain.

"I can't touch it, not now, just dump the powder in your hands and blow it in his face," I instruct him, Frost empties the contents in his hands and blows the purple powder into Harley's face and I watch as Harley is immediately rendered unconscious and falls back onto the bed, pushed into a sleep.

Frost lets out an exasperated breath and droops to the ground beside me, his fear finally released a little and he looks at me, confused. I try my best to level my emotions so I don't end up freezing my entire home, and Frost the first to speak, 

"What was that?"

"A sleeping powder, he'll be out for about an hour, or two...I think you were right, I think...I think that crystal switched all four of us, but...how?

I mean, I'm still me, just with your powers, and you're still you so...why is Harley...different" I say, trying to figure out what exactly was going on with my friend.

"Didn't you say that Harley fell into that vat of chemicals for the Joker, that's how he got enhanced?" Frost questioned.

"Yeah, so?" I ask, not following.

"Well what if that wasn't the only thing those chemicals did to him. What if...what if part of what makes him so strong and agile, so...free is because he has a sort of...power?" Frost says, trying to lead me down his train of thought.

"What power?" I say, still not getting it.

"Well Harley was on the verge of a mental breakdown before the chemical vat, and after that, he was sort of always a little...off.

What if those chemicals gave him the power to suppress his conscience, to fully embrace his dark side, his obsession and his insanity. That would technically mean that Harley's insanity is his power," Frost continues.

"Even if that's the case? What does that have to do with what just happened to him. What? How does that explain what happened to him?" I counter.

"Well, the two of us switched powers, which leaves him and Feline being the only ones left to trade abilities. Feline's cat like reflexes, his claws, his night vision, all those are his powers right?"

"Right," I say, starting to catch on a little.

"So if Harley's power is insanity or conscience suppression and Feline's power is his cat-like abilities, then when they traded, Harley lost his 'power' to suppress his conscience which means that he's lost his insanity.

It's the reason why he reacted so fearfully and why he was breaking down. He's accustomed to not being able to distinguish between right and wrong, he doesn't understand things outside the realm of what makes him feel good at the time.

He's the quintessential Id, in the mind, focused only on what makes him happy without considering the consequences, now he's regained a superego and ego. He has a conscience."

It finally was starting to come together in my head.

"So that crystal basically placed a sane mindset into a person who's killed dozens people for thrills."

"Feline's a lot of things, but he's no murderer, not like us. He's only ever killed in self-defense, and even then, he's only ever killed other bad people. He's never a innocent person before. He may be a thief, but he still holds some morals," Frost commented, rolling his eyes a little.

He wasn't wrong though. Harley, Frost, and I are the only ones who kill without prejudice. Innocent or guilty matters not to me, all humans damage the earth, therefore, no human is above being killed.

Frost and Harley held the same ideologies in different ways, they killed whoever they wanted. But Harley's the one who enjoys it the most, he kills people for kicks, with the Joker, and now...now he's been forced to feel the effects of those deaths.

"So his soul is still dark, but his mind is repaired, and that confusion is tearing his mind apart. He's battling with the memories of his insanity with a stable, conscientious mind," I answer, Frost nods.

"We need to fix this, we need to get Harley, so we need get Fel—" I start and then I instantly remember, something that neither one of us took into consideration

"What? What is it?" Frost asks.

"If we've all switched powers, and Harley's sane, than that means that someone has Harley's insanity," I start and Frost catches up.

"Feline," he answers, his eyes wide.

***********************************************************

The cats in the small apartment are hissing at the man on the floor in the room. They can sense that something is wrong. The man rolled out of bed and fell to the floor just a few moments earlier. He was shaking and shivering until finally he stopped.

The man suddenly leapt up from the ground in a sitting position and the cats skirted around the apartment, running to try and escape. One barely missing the small blade that the man had thrown towards it. The man chuckles lowly, before crawling over to his vanity,

"Aww, the little pussies don't want to play with me," he says, his voice unhinged as he crawls to look at himself on the mirror attached to it.

He watches as his skin pales to a sickly white color and his hair fades from a jet black to a platinum blonde color with blue and reddish highlights. The veins in his face, and turn almost black, as his eyes dilate a little and he smiles, showcasing his teeth and he starts laughing lowly in his throat.

Then his laugh turns into a chuckle and then to a cackle as he grips the sides of the vanity mirror tightly, his enhanced strength starting crack the wood and he shakes it hard, until he slams it against the wall behind it. Cracking the mirror.

He laughs even harder as he let looks at his cracked, crazed expression reflected back at him. They he slams his fist into the mirror, shattering it, the glass shards decorated the top of the vanity and the floor and he cracks his neck.

As he picks up one of the glass shards, ignoring the blood dripping from his knuckles and holds it tightly. He just laughs even harder as he throws the shard of glass across the room and into the wall. He smiles,

"Batsy, Batsy, Batsy, you didn't think I'd let you go that easy...now did ya?" Feline says to himself as he uses the blood dripping from his knuckles and palm to draw a smile on his face and starts laughing even harder. His sanity lost, and his conscience erased.


	3. Chapter 3

Frost was out doing recon, trying to see if Feline was at his loft. We'd tried calling him, texting him, but nothing was working, he wasn't picking up or responding. We weren't exactly keen on being alone, especially being that we hadn't traded powers back yet, but finding Feline was important.

If we didn't get him back here to touch the crystal before tomorrow afternoon, we were severely fucked. Harley was still knocked out on my bed, and I'd been researching to find anything I could about this Change Rock, and surprisingly, there was much more information to find about it than I'd thought.

Most of it was folklore, but I'm guessing since the crystal was successful in trading out powers, this lore proves to be true. I was sitting at my table in front of my laptop, immersed in the information that I was finding, looking over the top, every so often to check and see if Harley was still asleep.

I'd looked over to my pad, writing down notes, trying to see if there was some way around the whole, 'we all have to touch it' thing, just in case we couldn't find Feline. I knew Harley, and I knew how he operated, mostly, but this is Feline, and there's no telling what Harley's insanity would affect him.

Or even what an insane Feline would look like. It was all so complicated, and from all the information I was finding, every single entry about this crystal remained the same. It needed all of us back to do it. I sighed heavy, rolling my eyes to continue searching.

I minimized the webpage and pulled up my personal browser, turning the volume up to make sure I didn't miss anything. I'd connected my server to the police scanners in Gotham, hitching onto their transmission wavelength.

I didn't use it very often, seeing as though Mother Green was always looking out for me. The plants had a way about them and if I listened, they'd warn me or reveal things that their sisters and brothers see.

Now, with Frost's powers, I couldn't reach out or rely on them now, so...I was reduced to using traditional scanners to see what's happening in Gotham. Trying to listen for keywords that sound like something Harley would do, but nothing was on it yet.

I searched around on different channels, but not a sign of Feline anywhere. He was nowhere to be found. I pulled out my phone and sent Frost a quick text.

// Found anything?

I waited a few moments and watched the three dots appear on the screen, Frost replying almost instantly.

\\\ No, he's not here, I'll check his other hangout spots? What about you, did you find a way to reverse this if we don't find him?

// No. Just keep looking and I'll keep looking, he's got to be around here somewhere, I'm checking the scanners now, just in case he gets into something.

\\\ Alright, keep me posted.

// You too.

I put my phone back on the table and rubbed my eyes, trying to keep myself calm, feeling Frost's powers kicking into gear inside me. I was used to having to manage my emotions with my own powers, but never to this extent. It's like any type of strong feeling, was a trigger and it was getting really irritating.

It felt like wearing someone else's clothes, sure they fit okay, but it still felt like someone else's clothes. Not being able to feel the call of the Green, not being able to feel her power coursing through me, my babies all around me, watching over me. It just...it made me feel like I did all those years ago before I was resurrected by the Green.

I was lost, purposeless, and empty. No real friends, love, connection, nothing to give me that get up and go. Having the Green by my side, serving the Earth, it renewed my spark for life, but now...now I felt lost again, and all I could think about was how much I needed it back, how much I needed the Green to be with me again. I needed her love because without it...without the Green, I had no one.

I shook off the hopelessness, and refocused my attention on the task at hand, I went back to researching and I looked over the screen to check on Harley and immediately my heart rate picked up, which felt more like a normal beating heart because of how few times Frost's powers allow my heart to beat.

All I knew was, I was immediately afraid. I let up from my seat and could feel my eyes glow along with my hands that became misty, reacting to the sudden influx of my anxious, fearful emotions. 

"Harley!" I called out, racing to look out my window near my door, but I know I didn't hear the door open and shut.

He had to still be in the house. I went into my bedroom which was just separated by the archway that connected it to the kitchen and saw a light on in the bathroom. I turned and saw Harley staring into the mirror beyond the water that was melting a little after I'd frozen it earlier.

He was staring strangely as he looked at himself. I felt relief spread through me and felt my eyes stop glowing and my hands stilled themselves, the mist dissipating. I looked at him as he inspected himself. I couldn't exactly explain it, but it was almost as if his whole demeanor shifted.

Usually, he exuded this sort of untamed giddiness about him, but staring at him now, even with the sheet covering his naked body, he just looked settled. Confused, yes, but settled. He sensed me staring at him and turned to look at me, his eyes shifting cat-like for a second before he shook his head and looked at me, blinking hard.

"Sorry, I don't know why I keep doing that," he apologizes, his voice void of his adopted Bronx accent, his voice seemed, husky, almost mature, it was very disconcerting.

"Uh, no, it's fine," I answer back, a little confused myself. I knew what was going on, I knew what was happening, but the shock of seeing Hartley so...together, it was just too odd. Even when he was sane, or at least, stable, he still had a certain air about him, like he could crack at any moment.

This Hartley, he...he wasn't the one I knew and he wasn't Harley Quinn either, no...he was someone else, someone completely and totally sane. No cracking, no quiver in his voice, not even a trace of the abuse I know he's endured.

He was supposed to be in bed, screaming and crying, but somehow...it's like his mind was settled now...like it adjusted to his sanity. He started to walk towards me and I could see he was becoming faint, I grabbed him just before he could fall, taking extreme care to focus on not freezing him.

"Hey, you gotta take it easy, the sleeping powder isn't completely out of your system yet, it's effects are pretty strong. You should still be knocked out," I say, trying to explain, leading him to the bed, he sits next to me, and looks at me, pulling away from my hands slowly,

"Your hands are cold," he answers, trying to make sure I knew his reasons for pulling away. He sits up a little, and pulls on his underwear next to the bed, and then looks at me and squints,

"Okay...I might be a little out of it, but...isn't your hair supposed to be red?" he asks, groggily, looking at me through heavy eyelids.

"Yeah, it's supposed to be, something happened to us earlier today, tell me, how much of it do you remember?" I ask, trying to coax him awake.

"Not much, I remember, I think I remember us going to some...museum? We took some weird looking white crystal, and uh...we came to your house and then...well, nothing. I just remember waking up now," he answers, blinking a little harder to try to get himself together.

"Do you remember who you are?" I ask, fearfully.

"Yeah, I know who I am, Sammy," he answers, laughing a little.

This shook me to my core. Harley would same my real name sometimes, usually only when we slept together, but the way he said it this time, it was different.

And he looked at me, the smile leaving his eyes and I could tell that he was getting there, his consciousness was catching up with his reality.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to—" he starts.

"No—no it's okay, I get it, you're just confused is all. How are you feeling?" I ask, tentatively, scared that I might set him off again. He took in a deep breath and shook off the last bit of grogginess.

"I feel like I was hit by a bus. Everything aches, and my head, god, my head is killing me. But it's settling. It's not exactly all there yet, but I'm getting there," he answers, smiling weakly,

"What happened to us? What happened to you?"

"Well, apparently we weren't supposed to touch that crystal with our bare hands because technically it's not a crystal at all. It was supposedly broken off of a metal human who was made entirely of white quartz who had the ability of reflection, which means was able to reflect attacks both supernatural or otherwise no matter how powerful.

There used to be many of them when the guy was alive, but once he found out that there were pieces of him in the world, he destroyed most of them. There are still a couple of stragglers left, but they're a bitch to find. There were only two so far that people have found, the one we stole, which was supposed to be transferred to some other facility and the other found by some guy a long, long time ago," I answer.

"Well, looks like someone's been reading up on their magical crystal Wikipedia page," he said, jokingly.

"Well, let's just say, I got a lot of reading done trying to figure out how to fix this. I just want my powers back and our money. That crystal just isn't worth the trouble it's gotten us in," I say, shivering a little in disgust.

"Where's everybody else?" he asks.

"Feline's in the wind and Frost's trying to find him. He's got you um—well, he's got your—" I start, trying to be careful, knowing his sensitivity to the word—

"Insanity," he says, his voice low in admission, almost ashamed,

"Yeah, I kind of figured."

"Harley, are you...are you okay?" I ask in trepidation.

"No," he says, his voice cracking a little from the emotion he's trying to hold back,

"Ivy...Sam, the things I've done...all of it...I don't—I just—"

He's trying hard to keep himself from crying, but I can see how hard this is for him. So I focus with everything inside me to pull back as much of my chill as possible and wrap my arm around him and he comes closer, reluctant tears streaming for his eyes onto my chest, dampening my shirt.

I may not have cared too much about human life, neither did Harley when he wasn't insane, but that didn't mean that I didn't feel anything. The things I've done, though for a greater purpose, have had an effect on me over the years.

I know what I must do, and I know that the only life that matters is the Green, but there are sometimes, sometimes late at night, when I'm lying in bed, only for a moment, I'll feel...guilt.

It passes as quickly as it comes because there's only one life that I feel even the tiniest pang of regret for, and that was for Pamela. I hated what my parents had done to me, I'd hated how they doted on her more than me, and I wanted to make them suffer.

But...killing my sister, killing someone who didn't even get the chance at life, it had an effect that I could never truly get past. I've killed dozens of people, none of their deaths ever made me feel even the slightest bit guilty, hell, not even killing my parents. But my sister...that pain, no matter how small, still existed, so I knew what Harley was feeling...maybe not in the same degree that he's feeling it, but I knew.

I understood. My Hartley, he may have been a sociopath, but this man crying into my chest, this man, he was not that guy...not with Feline's sanity running through his brain. He was different.

"Sam, the things he's done to me...the things I did to those people, to those innocent people," his voice still cracking, as he forced himself to calm down, he pulled away and I looked at his reddening eyes, full of regret,

"I'm not a good person Sam, I'm—I'm evil,"

The way he said it, the way he'd admitted it, it broke my heart to see him like this. He looked broken, and not in the way that he was supposed to be, but broken from the guilt of his past. He was remorseful and what he's done is tearing him apart all over again.

I may have done some terrible things, but it was my choice to do them. Hartley's choice was to kill, he enjoyed it, he thrived in it because that was who he was, but now, now he was normal.

Whatever screws were loose in his brain before he fell into the chemical vat and after having Feline's sanity, tightened them up and now he was just like any other decent human being, he was filled with morality.

"It's okay Harley, we're going to fix you, we're going to give you back what that crystal took from you," I say, trying to reassure him and he immediately jumps back, almost afraid.

"What's the matter Harley, what happ—" I start.

"I can't go back Sam, I can't go back to that place, to that—to being with him. I can't do it, I can't take it. You don't Ivy, you don't know—" he starts rambling on, fearful and terrified.

"Harley, calm down," I say trying to approach him, but he pulls back and he's almost shaking now.

"No! You don't understand Ivy! You don't understand what happens with us. You think what you did was bad? You killed a couple dozen people, a baby, that's nothing. You have no idea what we've done together Ivy. Mr.—The Joker, he's sick, he's dark, he's—" he rambles on again.

"It's okay Harley—" I try to cut in again.

"Sam, listen to me!" he screams, coming forward, gripping my shoulder's tight,

"It's not him that I'm afraid of. It's me! He's bad, but Sam, god Sam, I'm so much worse. The things I've done to people, I—surprise even him sometimes," he admits, and I'm floored, and I can tell he can see it, "

And it's all for him, everything, everything I do is for him. I worship him, I adore him, I'd do anything, anything for him Sam, do you understand that?

I'd do anything to make him happy, even...god, it scares me to even think about it...but if he asked me—if he really wanted me to—I think...I think I'd—I think—" he starts, unable to finish his sentence, and he doesn't have to because I already know what he was going to say.

It's something that I thought about before, something that crossed my mind, so I finished his sentence for him.

"You'd kill me," I say, just stating it simply, not really wanting to think about how it made me feel. 

"I don't know—I don't think so, I pray that I wouldn't—I pray to God, or whoever's still listening to me that I wouldn't. But Ivy—that's what scares me. I was already messed up before him, and after that vat, it destroyed whatever doubt I may have been having about loving him.

He used my own mind against me Sam, and now he owns me, I want him to own me when I'm like that. I care about you Sam, but if I go back to being like that, when I'm with him, when I lost my mind, he's all I think about, all I want, I am devoted to him, mind, body, and soul. I might sleep with you, but I'd die for him.

And that kind of devotion means that I may not be able to control what I do in service of him. I'd die if I lost you, Sam, my soul would die without you, you mean everything to me. But if he asked me—I don't know what I would do," he admits, and it rocks him down to his core, it tears him apart and I can see it.

My Harley would have never admitted something like this, but he did. Haley wasn't the one for this kind of honesty, not like this, not when it could hurt me this badly. I knew that if I was filled with the Green, I may have cried, may have shown some emotion, but with my heart frozen, I could only feel the pain, but not emote it.

This was the first time all night that I was grateful for Frost's powers. Harley's admission made me realize something as well, Harley was human, and my mission was to destroy all humanity. If the Green willed me to kill Harley, would I do it? Would I kill the person I loved in service of my devotion to the Green?

This is when I realized that Harley and I weren't so different. Harley wore his insanity on his sleeve, I was just better at hiding it. In truth, we both hold the same sort of insanity, the same sort of unhinged nature inside. Where Harley's devotion lies with the Joker, my devotion lies with the Green, and that forced us to have to make a strong decision.

If we had to choose between our respective devotions, would we choose it, or would we choose each other?

"This is really starting to piss me off!" Frost said, bursting through the doors, and both Harley and I were cut off from our exchange.

He was wiping away his tears, and I instinctively turned away from him, afraid that even with my heart frozen, I might still cry. This was not what I wanted to talk about, not now, not ever. I needed to focus on something else, we needed to find Feline and we needed to get Harley back to the way he was.

This Harley was too honest for my taste and too deep, and this wasn't something I'd even considered let alone thought about. But sane Harley had, and that...that was too much, too fast.

"What happened?" I ask, clearing out my throat.

"I couldn't find him, that's what?! I've looked everywhere! I mean, you'd think I'd know him enough to know where he might be, I mean shit, we've fucked each other for god's sake and I can't find him anywhere in Gotham?

And these fucking plants keep following me everywhere, trees, leaning towards me, bushes, they just keep fucking bothering me," he says angrily, huffing as my vines approach him.

My eyes start to glow and my hands start to get misty as my anger spikes too.

"You'd do well to mind your tone when you speak about my children, Frost," I threaten, and he just rolls his eyes, and purses his lips.

He might have an attitude, but he knew how seriously I took an insult to the Green.

"Sorry, Ivy. I'm just ready to get my powers back, and not having them is really getting to me. All these emotions and stuff are really starting to annoy me," he says, rubbing his temples.

"Wait, you and Feline?" I ask, sidetracked by what he'd said.

"Aren't we all gonna fuck each other at some point or another?" he asks, neither me or Harley deny his statement, because, in all honesty, he wasn't wrong,

"We were just fucking, nothing serious, we just both get a little pent up sometimes. Since he and The Bat can't get it on and I wasn't currently fucking anyone, we saw it as a win-win situation, but that's beside the point I was trying to make. I fuck this guy and I can't even find him? Anything show up on the police scanner?"

He asks, turning up the volume on my computer, the police banter and noise start flowing in,

"No, not that I've heard, I mean that's not like Feline, he wouldn't just vanish off the face of the Earth. He has to be somewhere? He has to—" I stop, turning to look at Harley, whose face was already looking guilty, it looked like he knew something.

I'd known Harley long enough to know when he was lying or keeping secrets, he's pretty good at hiding it usually, but with his sanity, he's standing out like a sore thumb.

"Harley..." I ask, and immediately he's shaking his head.

"What?" he asks, feigning confusion as if he doesn't know why I'd said his name. Frost looks over at Harley now, catching onto the fact that Harley knows more than he's letting on.

"You know something and you're not telling us, come on Harley, spit it out," I ask again, and Harley looks away from me trying to keep himself from my eyeline,

"You know you can't just let him get hurt Harley, your conscience won't let you."

"I don't have one," he counters, but it's a clear lie.

"You do now. We need to find him, Harley, not just for me, but for Frost too. We have to get him back before he does something," I reason with him.

"I told you, I don't want to go back, I don't want to be like that again, I can finally see clearly and you're telling me to go back to being crazy again. No, Ivy, I can't do that. I just can't," Harley almost begs and I can't help but feel bad.

Before I could try to convince him again, Frost is already out of his seat walking towards us.

"Listen, Harley, frankly I'm not really liking this whole, thoughtful Harley Quinn bullshit. I miss the old you and I want my powers back, so you either tell us what the fuck you know, or I'll make you," Frost threatens and I see his eyes cloud over black.

I watch as my vines leap from the ground and from the open window in my bedroom and start wrapping themselves around Harley's neck, and before I could react, there was a rough and rigid block of bark that shot up my ground floor and threw me against the wall across my bedroom.

I start trying to get up but suddenly the bark starts to surround me, barricading me in the corner. 

"Frost! Stop it!" I scream, slamming my fist against the bark,

"He's just scared, Frost! If you would've just waited, we could've talked—"

"I'm done talking, Ivy! The more time we spend talking, the less time we have to get Feline and fix this! If he knows something, he's telling us, right here, right now. I don't know what kind of Harley this is, but if he was anything like the real Harley, he'd be kicking my ass at this point, but he's not.

He's just choking, we need the real Harley back ASAP, not this weak ass, crystal version. I'll get it out of him, one way or another," he threatens, and I can hear Harley choking and that's what sets me off.

He's struggling to breathe, and I feel the rage boil inside me, or more accurately freeze. I feel my eyes glowing and my hands become misty, I slam my bare hands against the bark, freezing it solid and breaking free. I race towards Frost who's holding Harley's face in his hands, as the vines hold tightly onto Harley's neck.

I take in a deep breath, the deepest I could possibly take, and before Frost could do anything I exhaled, the icy wind, that covered the entire room in ice mist that I focused with everything in my power to keep from below freezing.

I didn't know how to work Frost's powers entirely, but I knew that if I wasn't careful, I'd kill every living thing in the room, including my babies, and that I couldn't allow. When the mist cleared, I saw everyone covered in ice, Frost, and Harley included, no one was frozen, but they were shaking from the cold.

I walked over and smacked Frost across the face and sent a cold blast directly against his chest, throwing him across my room and into the kitchen over the sink. He tumbled to the ground, still shaking and I walked over to him and snatched him up by his neck and lifted him up.

"What's the matter Frost, what's that phrase you always say...afraid to get a little cold," I say, kicking him in the stomach and he coughs a little, trying to hunch over, but I pull him up to face me again,

"The only reason you're not dead yet is because I know you're going through. The Green has a tendency to cause passion to be magnified, so all your feelings are magnified as well. So, I'll give you that, but listen really well to me, Frost.

Until we get our powers back, keep your emotions in check, because if you ever try to hurt Harley again, whether it's the connection causing it or not," I pull him closer, feeling the his face beneath my hands start to freeze under my touch, and I bring us nose to nose,

"I. Will. Kill. You."

"Sorry, gotcha, guess I just needed to chill out," he says, trying his best to force out a laugh, but it was so cold under my touch that it just came out shaky.

It could have been the cold or it could have been the fear, but I could tell that Frost came back to his senses. He'd better be glad I understood the effects of being connected to the Green, otherwise, he wouldn't have been so lucky.

The inscription said that we all had to touch it in order to switch our powers back, it didn't say anything about all parties having to be alive for it to work.

"Let the room go," I instruct, and Frost, finally back to himself, rubs his hands together quickly, creating friction no doubt trying to heat himself up, but in the process he releases Harley and the vines all go back to the earth and Harley coughs as he falls to the ground, and Frost quickly goes over to him to help him up.

"Sorry, Harl's, I kind of got a little heated, can you imagine? Me? Heated? We really need to fix this, like yesterday," Frost admits, and I walk over to them and look at Harley.

"This is why we need to know what you know Harley, Frost isn't even acting like himself, and the only thing that crystal did was unfreeze his heart. Can you imagine what Feline could be doing right now? What if he does something that gets him taken away, or killed?

If we can't find him, we're all stuck like this. You know this isn't right Harley, you know we need to fix this. If you know something, please, tell us. If not for us, then do it for Feline. Yes, you've done some bad things, but so have all three of us, but we all could have resisted it if we really wanted to," I coax, trying to get Harley to understand.

"No, I couldn't have Sam, all the things I did, all of it, it was because I wanted to do it. I wanted to hurt people," he responds.

"Yeah, but you still chose it, Harley," Frost adds and Harley looks to Frost as if he'd punched him in the stomach.

"He's right Harley. The Joker may have supplied you the gun, but you were the one who pulled the trigger.

He never forced you to do anything from what you told me. Everything that you did, it was your choice," I say, hating the fact that I had to be so direct, but I had to be honest with Harley. If we were going to get anywhere, we needed to be honest.

"But this wasn't Feline's choice," Frost says, finishing my thought and Harley looks at me, I see that even though he's hurt, even though he doesn't want to admit it.

He knows we're not lying, and I can see that he understands. He turns away from us, and takes a deep breath before he speaks,

"When I was insane, I lived and breathed only to serve the Joker, he was everything to me, my sole reason for living—" he starts.

"Harley we know this already," Frost cuts him off.

"Yes, but you don't know that he was what jumpstarted my insanity. My obsession with him was what caused me to kill my father, that lady and her unborn son, and all those people at the—" he couldn't finish his sentence, the guilt was getting to him, but he forced out a shaky breath and forced himself to continue as he turned back to face us,

"All of it came from my devotion to him, my love for him. So, if my version of insanity was connected to my love for the Joker, then whoever Feline loves will be the catalyst for him."

I immediately turn to Frost, who just cocks his head when he looks at me,

"We fuck, wouldn't exactly call that love."

"Then who?"

Just then we hear a transmission from the police scanner on my laptop that cuts in, the volume still on high from when Frost was toying with it,

"We have a hostage situation at the Gotham City Mall. The assailant has five kids, strapped to chairs hanging over the balcony, threatening to push them off, if we don't get The Bat here in the next twenty minutes,"

The transmission cut outand in again, and we heard the police chatter, but we all looked to each other,and without saying a word, we all knew that this assailant asking for The Bat could only be one person.

We teased him about it every chance we got, The Bat always took it easiest on him when they fought, and they've been at this catand mouse game for years.

Feline may steal things and fight every now andagain, but as far as the list of hardcore criminals go, he may have been afierce contender, but compared to the three of us, he was a boy scout.

So itmakes sense that The Bat would fall for him too. He's the bad boy that could change, the one villain who hadn't taken that final step down the murdering sociopathic rabbit hole that we all went down.

He was still redeemable, but with Harley's insanity inside him, that might not last much longer. Feline was in trouble, and we needed to get to him before The Bat does.


	4. Chapter 4

Frost and I cautiously approached the outskirts of the Gotham City mall, it was, for the most part, surrounded, with parents and onlookers watching intently as the police tried to approach the entrance.

We knew we had to get inside, but trying to get past the crowd, looking the way we did with powers we barely understood how to use, would not have been the most opportune thing for either of us to do, so we tried our best to stay in the shadows.

I told Harley to stay at my house, for now, the last thing we needed was a sane Harley in a situation that was very much so his and the Joker's style. We didn't understand exactly how this whole power switching thing worked, but we did know that since we were the only two people that were somewhat in control of their actions, we were the only ones able to go after Feline.

From the looks of it, The Bat wasn't here yet, so we still had time. Feline quite possibly blocked off the entrances and being that he had hostages that he was using as bait for The Bat, no one would dare come inside. They were all waiting, but we didn't have time for that.

Frost and I made our way around the crowd, to the back of the building, we saw the two police cars, trying to get in through the back entrance, we counted about four police officers and we hid behind a few bushes that surrounded the back of the mall. I looked to Frost who looked at me nervously,

"Okay, remember what I said, focus on staying calm, cool, and collected. They react to your emotions, keep them settled and focus, we have to keep them inconspicuous," I whisper to Frost, who nods trying to still himself.

We both take in a deep breath and places his hand on the soil by the bush, I watch as the vines slowly rise from the ground and slither their way across to the pavement, underneath the car, sliding onto the tires and up to the headlights right next to the four policemen. I watch as they bud a few gray roses and I turn to Frost,

"Think of sleep, and how it makes you feel, the yawning, the drowsiness, and project that feeling into the roses," I instruct, Frost nods, and takes in a deep breath, holding it as I'd shown him before we'd gotten here and released it slowly, the roses mirroring the actions, releasing the chloroform into the air around the policemen.

Before they could react or use their radios they'd already fallen to the ground, completely unconscious. Frost pulled his hands up and I smiled,

"Not bad," I said, and he smiled as we quickly made our way over to the double-bolted door entrance and I placed my hands on the doorknob,

"Okay, now it's your turn," he says, and I close my eyes and focus on the handle in front of me, feeling my hands mist over and my irises glow white, the handle froze over and I could see the ice, slowly spreading from the door handle to the rest of it, but it was traveling a little too slowly,

"Remember, this is metal, specifically steel, which requires a freezing point of at least 2500 degrees Fahrenheit, but in order for it to freeze to the point of shattering you need it at about another hundred to two hundred degrees colder.

I may not be able to feel things like love, but I do get pissed, and that's what drives my power, remember, more anger, more ice, so in other words, get furious," he tells me and I grip onto the handle tighter and think of my emotions.

All the things that anger me, and the main thing that came to mind was the state of the world's ecosystem, how humans consistently destroy the planet and exhaust all our natural resources, and at that point I could see the ice moving more quickly.

Then I thought of Harley, how he left me all those years ago, how lonely I felt, that made me even more upset. I may have forgiven him but that didn't change the heartache of the past and that was what I needed to break this door, down, I watched and the door was almost completely frozen but I could feel that it was nowhere near shattering so I went deeper,

"Come on, Ivy you can do it," Frost eggs me on, and I think back to what Harley said about the Joker, how horribly he treats him, before and after they got together.

How much he loves and cares for him and the Joker can't even do him the luxury of saying I love you too. He doesn't deserve Harley's love, he doesn't deserve his devotion, he doesn't deserve my Dean, and that was why I hated him so much. I hate the Joker more than anything in this world and if I could kill him without breaking Harley's heart I would have done it the moment he told me about all he's done to him.

At that thought, that hatred, I felt the power surge inside me and I slammed my other hand against the steel door and watched the ice mist from my hands sink into the door and watched it crumble beneath my hands with the only thing remaining being the doorknob I threw to the ground.

"Damn," Frost adds, awed, and follows me inside as we walk into the empty storage room. We make it to the door and look outside, the hallway is empty and brightly lit by the fluorescent lights, however, that only increased the situations eeriness.

There was a silence in the air, a stillness that neither Frost nor I could shake because the only thing we could hear was the subtle whistle of the tone, 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' over the intercom. This was definitely something Harley would do, he was always a stickler for making anything he did a production, much like the Joker.

He may have been subdued when he was around me, Frost or Feline, but when he got around the Joker, he was more than manic, he was completely unhinged. So it came as no surprise when Frost and I made our way to the middle of the mall.

I looked up in shock as I saw the spectacle before me. At the top of the escalator, there were five small kids, no more than seven or eight years old strapped to chairs that were held by what looked like fishing like on the edges of them to keep them in place. It was tied to both the two front legs and the back legs were the only ones on top of the rail.

It was a haphazard rig, both Frost and I looked at each other with the same thought crossing our faces, if those children so much as sneezed, they could shift those seats and they'd fall to their deaths. I wasn't much for children, neither of us were, but we both knew that if Feline killed them, or they ended up dead, Feline could be put away again and we'd be stuck with each other's powers.

The kids were silent, all tied to the chairs, mouths duct-taped close and their eyes were covered by a cloth. To be dangling over the edge, these children were surprisingly silent, and we realized that they weren't conscious,

"Are they dead?" Frost whispered, and I looked and noticed their chests moving and shook my head

"No, I think he drugged them," I whisper back, trying to keep us in the shadows, we were both looking around to see if we could find Feline, but he was nowhere to be found.

We could still hear him on the intercom, at least the whistling, but we couldn't see him anywhere around in the area.

"Do you see him?" Frost murmurs to me, I shake my head again, and walked toward the escalator, as I looked around the empty, nearly completely silent mall, confused. This isn't Harley's thing, it can't be this easy.

"No, but something doesn't feel right, there just handing over the edge. Why haven't the police tried to get them down?" I ask as Frost stands at the bottom of the escalator facing me.

I was confused. Harley as a lot of things, but the one thing I knew for a fact was that he was a planner through and through. Just like the Joker. They may have crazy, off the wall, insane plans, but there is always a plan. If Harley was going to hang a couple of kids, dangling over the rail, threatening to push them off, he wouldn't just leave, that would give the police or the Bat a chance to save them.

And Feline has Harley's crazy, so he wouldn't act so rash unless there was a plan involved, but what was it? What was the joke, what was the plan? That much I couldn't figure out.

"Well, at least he's in the main office and not up there. We can get the kids down so the Bat doesn't take him to Arkham and he's got no leverage. We'll just ambush him and take him back to the house so we can sort through all this," Frost says, just as he turns to step on the escalator and that's when it hit me.

Feline is thinking like Harley, which means, he knows that the only way to get the Bat to get involved was if the police couldn't handle the threat. If it was as easy as walking up the escalator to get them down, they could just use their guns to fend Feline off long enough to get the kids. Then there was the power situation.

The only thing that had power was the intercom, everything else in the mall was completely dark, which means, no elevators, no equipment. The only thing that could get up to the second floor where the kids were dangling from was the escalator.

But that was the question I couldn't seem to place, these kids were strapped to chairs that were literally inches away from falling to the ground, what was holding them up. What was keeping them in place, and then I realized, the only reason why the escalator was the only thing able to access those kids was because that was what Feline wanted, which means that the escalator had to be—

"Frost wait!" I scream, reaching out to Frost, but he'd already placed his hand on the escalator and just then it came to life and the belt started to move upward and I watched Frost leap back.

As we both looked up to the belt that as I suspected, was connected to the chairs by a fishing line that held them in place. The escalator only moved for a moment and stopped the moment Frost jumped back. But it moved long enough to snap one of the fishing lines holding an edge of one of the chairs in place, and from the looks of it, the one leg was not going to stand on its own. 

The weight having been disproportioned caused the other fishing line to snag and I could tell that the kid was only seconds away from falling. I felt my eyes glow as my hands become misty and felt it ice over as I opened it and directed the cold blast of energy towards the leg of the chair that was broken from the fishing line, and froze it in place, steading the shaky chair and keeping the kid in place.

The ice froze the leg to the rail and both Frost and me released the shaky breath we were holding.

Neither of us really cared that much about a kid living or not, but we needed them alive so the Bat or the police wouldn't have a reason to put Feline away. I heard a laugh in the room, a sinister one that was almost taunting. It was different from the Joker, or Harley's, this laugh was unnerving, and truly sent chills down my spine.

I looked up to see Feline, crawling on the adjacent railing to the kids, laying on it, his body, centimeters away from dropping to the ground. He held a perfect balance as he smiled down at us, his eyes looked hooded and dark, red around the rim as if he was extremely tired or hadn't slept in days. He was wearing a white t-shirt which had the words, 'time to play,' crudely drawn in what looked like red paint, and red acid washed genes and black Timberland boots.

He looked like he was wearing bright blue lipstick with red eyeshadow on his eyes, all smeared around messily, with his now platinum hair slicked back. From his look alone, I could tell this wasn't Feline at all, not even close, he was definitely Harley, but it seemed like he was even more unhinged.

"Looks like you two are up for a game of Russian roulette," he says, as he allows himself to fall off the ledge holding himself dangling from the side by just his right hand.

Both Frost and I readied ourselves to save him, but he merely laughed as he cocked his head to the side, smiling with an almost kid-like enthusiasm as he laughs, swinging back and forth on the ledge and he swings himself up in the air, and flips backward and until he lands on a perfect dismount behind the railing walking toward the escalator.

"Do you like my little game...it really gets the blood pumping doesn't it, or does it get the blood splattered everywhere, I don't remember, everything is all jumbled up here, it's hard trying to place everything," he adds, walking over to the top of the escalator looking down at us, with that same childlike grin, it was truly unsettling to see.

I'd seen Harley get crazy before, I'd seen him let go, but apparently that was just the tip of the iceberg because Feline was actually starting to frighten Feline and me, especially when we could still hear him singing over the overhead as he stares us down.

Even though we both were aware it was a recording now, the fact that he'd done all this just to set the scene, shows just how deep it goes. I thought that he was going to be like Frost and me, still ourselves, mostly, just with the power change.

I was used to seeing Harley's excitement, his giddiness, and even when he had that childlike innocence that he feigned so perfectly, there was still an element of performance to it, I could still see Harley behind the façade he was putting on.

Feline may have had Harley's insanity, but all the humor and genuine excitement were lost in translation, Feline was just insane and there was a darkness to it, one that I knew existed in Harley but never really paid attention to. But I suppose now, maybe Harley was putting on an act for me too.

Maybe this darkness that I was seeing so clearly in Feline was present in Harley too, he just didn't show it to me. Regardless, seeing Feline stare at us as his voice repeatedly song the nursery rhyme, made me feel creeped out on a whole other level.

"Feline...something happened to you, something really bad, and we need to fix it, we need to get you back to normal," I started, talking to him as if he was a wild animal ready to pounce at any moment.

From the look in his eyes, that's exactly what he was right now, an animal with no collar or leash to hold him back. He turns his head and looks up to the edge of the ceiling, murmuring to himself, arguing with himself and turns back to me.

"They said you're lying," he answers back.

"Who?" Frost asks, confused.

"The voices silly," he answers as if it's as obvious as the sky is blue,

"They told me that you're lying and that you're trying to keep me from getting my Batsy. She's so perfect and special, and wonderful, and I love her so, so very much.

I'm waiting for her here, so you see, I can't leave, neither can they, either she comes her or they die, it's simple really. So you see, I am normal, a normal boy who's in love."

"Okay, we can take you to him, you just...you have to come down to us, you have to let us take you to him. We'll take you to Batsy, we promise," I lied, looking to Frost who nods. Understanding my que, and I watch him ready the knockout powder in the little pouch we prepared before we came here.

"You think I'm stupid!" he screams, kneeling to his boots, pulling out two blades and throwing them towards us so fast, that Frost and I barely ducked out of the way just in time.

Feline to roll to the floor, pick up two handguns and started firing away, separating Frost and I. I ducked behind a pillar on the left side of the mall while, Frost ducked behind a solid metal bench as Feline just kept riddling off bullets in either direction, before stopping.

"I know you two don't know Batsy, she's a good guy, and you're the bad guys, she wouldn't talk to you. You really think I'm stupid enough to believe you, they really thought I'd believe them, they thought I'd believe that they know Batsy, my Batsy is a special girl, she's the perfect girl.

My Batsy, she's a good girl, isn't she? I know she is, she's the best, I can't wait to see her, aren't you excited, yes, yes, I'm so excited to see my special girl," Feline starts, asking questions and answering himself, I can hear him pacing around murmuring to himself and that's when I realize, there's no getting through to him by talking.

It was seldom that I'd ever see Harley get like this, but when he did, he wasn't much for talking.

He was a man of action and face the consequences after, and right now, that was who Feline was. I had to think, Frost looked over at me, looking at me for an idea of what to do now. I had no idea how long it'd be before the Bat got here and Frost and I knew that those kids couldn't die or we'd both be screwed, but time was ticking and we were on a race against the clock.

If we didn't get Feline within the next hour, we're going to be stuck like this forever, and that was just not an option. I closed my eyes and clenched my fist, the mist forming around them and I turned to look at Frost who was looking at me strangely, but I could tell he was catching on.

Even though neither of us knew how to use each other's powers completely, we pretty much had the basics, which had to be enough. We were out of options and there was no talking Feline off the ledge, not like this, so with haste and zero hesitation I signaled Frost and he knew what we had to do. We had to take Feline down.

I quickly stepped out from behind the pillar, eyes flaring white, and just as Feline noticed and readied his weapons to shoot. I slammed my hands down on the floor below me and the horizontal ice frost shot towards both of the pillars that were parallel from each other.

It makes its way halfway up them before stopping as I lifted my hands up quickly, palms facing Feline as the wall of ice was making it's way up from the ground following the direction of my hands.

The riddles of bullets were gracing the edges of the ice wall but it wasn't enough to penetrate as I lifted it to cover my body completely and everything behind me.

Feline was immediately running towards me, guns blazing trying to jump over before I iced it over completely, and once he'd realized that it was already frozen he quickly turned to shoot at the kids in the air, snapping the fishing lines.

They started to plummet towards mall floor and just before they hit it, Frost had sent vines from the flower shop bursting though the windows, looping themselves through the chairs and the backs and strapping them in place. The force of the jolt of slight whiplash waking them slightly and I could hear them starting to whine a little, as they groggily started to awaken.

I looked to see Frost eyes completely clouded black as he slowly lowers his hands, trying to safely place the kids on the ground. Feline immediately turned to aim his weapons at Frost, but before he could, I'd slammed my hands against the ice wall shielding me from Feline's bullets and felt the wall crumble and mist into an ice mist, the force of which knocked Feline of balance and threw him to the ground.

Just as I was about to grab him, he pulls out a blade he had stashed in his belt loop and slashed it towards me, grazing my hand slightly, causing just a small stream of blood to fall, but it froze over and healed just as quickly. And in the midst of me turning Feline had already thrown the knife towards me and I dodged it, but then he used my own reaction time against me and kicked me in the chest, making me stumble backward.

I turned back to face him again, having no need to regain my breath and he immediately smacked me across the face with the back of his fist and leaped up and kicked me in the face. I stumbled back again, having taken blow by blow, and I'd almost forgotten that Harley's supercharged insanity, allowed him to be more agile and faster than most.

He could anticipate reactions, couple that with enhanced strength and the fact that both he and Feline both have a background in gymnastics, he was a force to be reckoned with and he was starting to piss me off.

He was in the air again about to roundhouse kick me and I grab his leg mid-air and toss him in the air over my head but he flips while in the air and throws two more blades towards me, I dodge one, but the other slices my left arm.

Feline lands on the ground in front of me and is immediately going after me, taking on a milli-second to recover and just before he gets to me I hit him with an ice blast that sends him barreling backward and he goes through a department store window, crashing the glass as he made an impact.

"Ivy!" Frost screams at him, having finally having gotten the kids safely onto the ground and jogging over towards me as I'm working my way towards the store,

"Well, he's not exactly cooperating!" I scream back, irritated.

I knew that Frost's ice healing factor worked similarly to my own, so the wound on my arm was already icing over but that didn't do anything for the pain. I'd never fought Feline or Harley before, and while they were both established fighters, I still had the advantage of my abilities. With Frost's powers, and Feline's newfound insanity, he was proving to be a lot more difficult to pin down than I thought.

Now he was in attack mode, just like Harley, neither one of us knows what to expect. We approached the shattered glass with trepidation to see where Feline landed and he was on the floor of the department, underneath two mannequins with glass shards and clothes spiraled all around him.

"Did you kill him," Frost asks, fearfully.

I look at Feline lying underneath the clothing and see that there is a streak of blood across his face along with one of his hands visible, with the other hidden beneath a shirt. Something was off, and I knew it. Frost was about to go towards him but I quickly placed my hands on his chest keeping him from moving any closer.

"What are you doing I have to see if he's still breathing," Frost whisper-yells at me and I hold my finger to my mouth to shush him as I turn to look at Feline apparently unconscious.

Harley and I talked about this before, he told me that one of the effects of his acid bath was that his skin was much more durable, it takes a lot for Harley to get hurt, let alone be rendered unconscious. He's physically enhanced, and has dealt with more than his fair share of blows, he can take a lot.

So the fact that Feline, wielding the same enhanced being that their powers have exchanged, somehow being knocked out from being thrown into a window, just didn't add up. I slowly approached him clenching my fists, misty hands at the ready and came closer to Feline. 

His other hand was suspiciously close to another shard of glass and I made sure to stay out of reaching distance as I walked nearer.

"Come on Feline, I know you're not dead, and I know you're not unconscious, so quit playing around, we're trying to help you, don't make us have to hurt you," I warn, Feline doesn't move, and his chest isn't either.

He appears as if he's not breathing, but I know better, this is Feline with Harley's insanity and mentality, and Harley's smart and extremely deceptive when he wants to be. I made sure to keep my hands at the ready.

"Ivy, stop playing around, he's not awake, we need to see if he's okay," Frost starts to move closer,

"I said wai—" the moment I let my guard down and turned towards him for even the slightest second.

Feline used this very same moment to shift his hands so that the mannequin leg would trip me up, knocking me on my back as he threw the two shards of glass towards Frost who dodged them both but not before Harley flips forward into the air, kicking Frost backward out of the store before he could even get a chance to use his vines.

I tried to get back up, but the moment I got up, Feline kicked up a sweater and threw it towards my face and with the cloth blocking my line of sight he'd leaped forward and kicked me in the face, knocking me back to the ground again, this time hitting a rack as I fell, knocking the clothes down on top of me.

I was becoming more and more frustrated with this whole holding back thing. I knew I could take him, but if I accidentally killed him, we'd be stuck like this. Instead, I just gripped the metal rack freezing it over just as Harley was about to elbow me and sent the chill down the rack and watched as it sprouted a sheet of ice that blocked Feline's body slam.

The second he yelped out in pain I threw my hands towards him again, sending a cold blast of ice mist towards him sending him flying backward outside the store.

"Frost! Catch him!" I scream out, struggling to get up and Frost sends a few vines towards Feline that surround him, gripping him like a caterpillar in the air as both Frost and I run over to grab him. Before we can I was tackled and thrown to the ground, with my hands were forced behind my back and with my head smushed to the ground.

I could see a ball rope that knocks Frost off his feet and as the balls settle, being pulled by what looks like a magnetic red energy and the green cape that was flapping to the ground in front of me. As the familiar almost glove-like arm restraints were cuffed on my forearms behind my back and the Green dampening energy within them starting to hum to life, having been made specifically for me after the Bat realized I was immune to the old one. 

I was forced up to face my assailant who I recognized as none other than Robin, the Girl Wonder, her fiery red hair and black face mask searing into me as she stared at me with her signature righteous fury that she no doubt had been practicing in the mirror.

"You're under arrest, Ivy," she said, her small adolescent voice trying with great difficulty to mirror the same strength as her superior who I was immediately searching for.

"Let go, Girl Blunder, I'm trying to—" I try to explain.

Struggling against her grip and she just dragged me towards Feline who was struggling inside the cocoon of vines that Frost encased him in. I looked up as I heard the ruffling of a large cape as the Bat leapt down from the ceiling. She is almost gliding down to the ground as she landed right next to Frost whose metal ball rope had opened and expanded to reach his feet which essentially had him lying on the ground with his feet tied to his hands as the now four metal balls started to glow red.

The Bat came up to the three of us and looked to me,

"Really Ivy, I never took you for kidnapping, what happened? They stepped on too many blades of grass," she says, her voice deadly serious, even with the thinly veiled sarcasm ever-present.

"No, you don't understand, that's not what—" but before I could finish she'd already placed a Bat-O-Rang Muffler over my mouth and it quickly split and latched onto my mouth, strapping itself around my neck and she sent another towards Frost who was about to try to explain.

"You wanted my attention, well now you've got it, complete and undivided," she says, as she looks towards Robin,

"Go get the kids out of here safely Robin, I'll handle them from here,"

"Yes ma'am," Robin answers, quickly letting me go and tossing me next to Frost as she quickly ran over to get the kids out through the back.

The Bat looked to the pair of us and then turns over to a struggling Feline who was muffle screaming trying to get out of the vines.

"It's okay, Feline, I'll get you out, I'm not sure why you're here, but you'd better have a damn good explanation for being involved with these two. Stealing is one thing, but kidnapping?

Feline you're too handsome to play around with something so dirty, I'm just surprised I didn't see Harley or Joker around, this seems like their MO," The Bat speaks aloud as she starts to cut into the vines.

I could see her thinking through what she was saying, and slowing her stride and then I realized something that I forgot about in the frenzy of Robin and the Bat arriving. They thought we were still ourselves, which means the traps they used on us are specific to our normal powers.

This cuff usually felt horrible because of how powerfully it blocked my connection to the Green, but now they just felt like regular metal cuffs, metal cuffs that could be frozen and shattered.

"Ivy, why is your hair—and why is Frost's—wait— "but before the Bat got the chance to put work it all out, Feline had broken free enough to get his hand and head through the vines grabbed the Bat's suit and snatched her forward as he head-butted her in the mouth temporarily stunning her.

He snatched the blade from the Bat's hands and cut his way out of the vines in one swift motion as he leaped on top of the Bat but not before she kicked him in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

Even with a bloodied mouth and slightly surprised, The Bat is still a force of nature, with a reaction time that surpasses even Feline's enhanced senses. I felt my eyes start to glow as I clenched my fists freezing the cuffs and breaking them free from my hands.

I breathed in deep through my nose and exhaled the icy breath into the muffler freezing it solid as it shattered off my face. I quickly froze off the Frost's as I watched Feline and the Bat go toe to toe, with the Bat struggling to maintain an upper-hand.

"Love muffin, please stop struggling, you're only going to make it worse!" Feline said as he somersaulted forward kicking the Bat in the stomach and then using slamming her mask into his knee as he roundhouse kicked her into a wall, but The Bat was quick, dropping to the ground and sliding underneath Feline, snatching his legs, making him fall face-first into the ground.

"Feline what happened to you!" The Bat screams but Feline is already back on his feet and already having leaped into the air but at this point, Frost had already summoned the vines from beneath the marble ground surface and they quickly interwove themselves through Feline's legs and arms, trapping him in midair.

The last of the vines wrapping around his mouth to keep him quiet. We both looked to the Bat who was already readying her weapons and I quickly put my hands up and allowed them to get misty. The Bat looked at me then to Frost who was focused on trying to keep the vines maintained on Feline who was still struggling against it.

"Alright, talk," The Bat says, hands still resting on her Bat-O-Rang, just in case Frost or I got any fast ideas. While part of me would love to go toe to toe with her, flirting with her as we fought vigorously, in our current situation, without my powers, I felt much less confident and a lot more exposed.

She may be attractive, and part of me wouldn't mind fucking her, today was business and we were running out of time.

"As you can see, the three of us are, well in what you would call a supernatural Freaky Friday," I begin to explain.

"Our powers have shifted, I have Ivy's, he has mine, and Feline and Harley as well. We're trying to take care of the situation, but in order to do that, we need Feline to come with us so we can take him back to Harley and fix all of this," Frost cuts in, finishing my thought.

The Bat looks at us, even under her mask, we could tell her usual stoic expression showed the slightest bit of questioning, a sort of doubt.

"But Harley doesn't have powers," The Bat counters, apparently not buying our story.

"We thought so too, but apparently that wasn't the case, he's enhanced, a sort of obsessive disorder on steroids, couple that with his inhuman pain tolerance, agility, and slightly more than human strength.

By all accounts and purposes, he's a low-level meta human, just like Feline. So yeah, he does have powers, and yes, now Feline has them and vice versa," I answered honestly, I wanted to lie, but I knew that if I did, The Bat would see right through it and regardless of switched powers or not, she would have taken us down.

Before I'd usually be able to hold our ground, and with Frost at my side, we could stand to get away and cause her some serious harm, but in our present state, a fight would be futile. The Bat knows both of our powers very well and if she used the proper tools on us, she could subdue us without a second thought.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with that museum break-in that happened last night, would it?" The Bat questioned, having lowered her hand, her cloak close around her, as she stood up straight,

"The stolen relic?"

Frost looked to me and I shrugged my shoulders, we could try and take Feline and get the Bat, but with Robin only a page away, it wasn't worth the risk. So against both our natural urges, I answered her question,

"Yes, it somehow switched our powers and now we have until the new morning to get all four of us back to the way we were before," I answer.

She looks at me and then suddenly before either me and Frost could react, she'd thrown two sparkers in the air that flashed before us and temporarily blinding us and I felt him shackle a backup pair of glowing red heat waves that kept me from summoning any cold energy and when my vision cleared, Frost had been shackled with the cuffs usually meant for me. She did just what I knew she would do.

"You have no idea what you're doing, please! Just let us go!" I scream, the fear of going back to Arkham like this, frozen heart and lonely, I can't take it. I'd rather die than be stuck like this forever, never knowing the Green's warmth, never knowing that precious feeling of something always watching me the tingle in my skin that let me know the Green was always there.

I can't go back to feeling like this again. Frost's powers are cold like ice, to touch my babies would mean killing them, and that I would never do. I'll kill myself before I kill them or something keeps me from them. From what I could tell, Frost felt the same as he began pleading with the Bat to listen and we watched as she walks up towards Feline who is still struggling against the vines.

I watch her put a mask on her face and lift the Bat Knockout Ball into the air, both Frost and I knew that if she dropped it, all three of us would be rendered unconscious, something she must have figured out. Without my powers, I'm unable to counter the toxin as I usually would by making myself immune and Frost hasn't had my powers long enough to even attempt immunity. 

We'd be unconscious for six hours or more, long enough to get the three of us out of here and locked up in Arkham. And long enough that we'll be stuck like this forever. Even though I was afraid, even though I heard Frost begging, something inside me still, it stilled long enough for me to see that The Bat still hadn't dropped the ball yet, why?

She was already suited up, we were all subdued, what was holding her back? And then I looked at the way she stood, the slight release of tension in her back, the subtle way she tilted her head when looking at Feline, even in his manic state. I didn't take much interest to psychological prerequisites of my degree in Botany and Environmental studies.

But the little things I did notice did muster up a familiar sensation, something that I learned about in one of my psych classes. People like the Bat, they may have the tough exterior but nobody, no person is without weakness. She may be an extremely skilled strategist and holds mastery over the martial arts that could rival many, she's as skilled as they come.

But at this moment, the briefest moments, I see the chink in her armor. As strong as she may be, she like all humans has a weakness, a weakness that I had to exploit before it was too late. Just as she's about to release it I blurt it out,

"You love him, don't you?!" I scream out and just then, she turns to me, Ball still at the ready, and I noticed the surprise in her expression.

But it was the kind of surprise that let me know I was telling the truth, she looked as if I told her what her darkest secret was, a deer in headlights, and I capitalized on it, pulling from my own secret places of hidden feelings,

"You know what Harley's like, you've met him and fought with him and the Joker. You know what he's capable of. That's why you haven't dropped it. You know that if you knock us out, Feline stays like this forever, and there's nothing you can do to bring him back, turn him back into the Feline you love."

"He can get help, just like Harley, he'll—he'll be fine," she says, for the first time since I've battled with the Bat, I heard her voice waver.

The little quiver of fear in her voice, and I knew I was getting through. Part of me wanted to revel in the golden opportunity, but now wasn't the time, she was on the brink and I had to push her off the cliff.

"But you don't know that for certain. Look how many times both Joker and Harley have been sent back to Arkham, all the times they escaped. Their psychosis unable to change or heal, their stuck in that state because they like it.

Are you really willing to risk Feline's life like that, risk having him stuck in a state of mind that he didn't choose but now has to live with forever? If you don't let us go, and you take us to Arkham, what's to stop him from escaping as Harley does?

What's to stop him from stalking you and killing other people you care about, Harley lives, breathes, and dies for the Joker, that level of devotion would mean Feline would never sleep and never stop coming after you. Risking more and more lives, taking more and more lives until he gets you to be just as insane as he is, are you willing to take that risk?

Are you willing to lose Feline forever, along with whatever else he drags down with him?" I ask, pulling from all the things I'd seen between Harley and the Joker. I pulled at every heartstring that exists inside The Bat, because as powerful as she may like us to believe her to be, she's only human, and that human loves Feline, my only hope is that her love for him is strong enough to save all of us.

She turns to look at me and walks over to me, grabs me by the throat lifting me into the air with ease. It always took me by surprise at just how strong she was, I wasn't the biggest guy in the world, but to the Bat, woman or man, she made sure we knew that she had control in the room. She was by all accounts of the phrase, a bad bitch.

"I know what you're doing Ivy, and it's not working, I'm not just going to let you go, you are all criminals, even Feline, and...you have to go to Arkham, you have to pay for your crimes," she says, her voice full of a righteous resolve, but there's a tinge of regret, she's cracking, and if she wasn't clutching my throat I'd jump on it.

"But Feline isn't. He hasn't killed anyone yet, has he?" Frost asks the question I was thinking. I thanked Mother Green for it had to be her who led him to say it, The Bat turned to him and her grip loosened a little around my neck, enough for me to speak clearly,

"Feline has never killed an innocent person, Harley, Frost, and I have, but never Feline. He's, well, the lesser of our four evils, a thief, sure, but a cold-hearted murderer?

Far from it. If you don't let us go so we can fix this, he'll stay like that forever, and is that what you want? Because if he kills someone, which I'm sure he will, the blood will be on your hands Batsy," I add the last comment in just to dig it in deeper, and she stares me head-on before releasing me from her grip.

In one swift motion, she jumps up to where Feline was and pulls out a vial with a blue liquid and injects it into Feline's neck and we see Feline's struggle start to die down until he's limp and the Bat starts cutting him out of the vines and she carries his limp body down from the air and places him on the ground.

She caresses his face and for a moment, I see the tenderness in the Bat, something she's never shown before, albeit for good reason. The way she looks at him, it's almost the same as someone looking at their husband or boyfriend who's struggling with addiction, tender care mixed with tough love.

Part of me wonders just how deeply their affection for each other goes or more importantly, what's keeping them apart? It has to be the fact that Feline's a thief, he's supposed to be a bad guy, and she's the good guy, two different sets of morals, two different worlds to never collide, but somehow, despite that, it still did.

The moment of her tenderness is short-lived as she turns to look at the two of us, nothing but confidence and strength beaming from her as she walks toward me. She looks me and Frost in the eyes and pulls out a black remote and pressed a button.

I wince, immediately thinking that it was going to knock us out but instead I feel my hand shackle release and look as the same is done to Frost who rubs his wrists as we both look at The Bat who's already set her grappling hook into the air, and lifts her with a swoop to the second floor, we both turn to look up, but she's nowhere to be found.

"You've got ten minutes to get out of the mall and down through the exit tunnels beneath before Robin and I come after you. I'll lead her through the back first and by the time we search the underground, you had better be nowhere to be found.

Because if you are, I'm taking you in, present situation or not," she announces, her voice near and far at the same time, but the authoritative command in it made both Frost and I look on in disbelief. Was she really going to let us get away? Does she really care about Feline that much?

"Nine minutes and forty-five seconds," she counts dow.

Frost and I are immediately on the move, I pick Feline up by his left arm and Frost he's his right arm, and we're off.

"Nine minutes and fifteen seconds," she counts and we are halfway down the hall and down the stairs.

It takes us pretty much no time at all to get through to the underground, tunnels we weren't even aware connected to the mall until The Bat made us aware of them. I used Frost's powers to place an ice wall at the entry and we bounded down through the Underground or more specifically the sewer system with Feline arms over our shoulders.

Frost and I were both aware of where we were in relation to the mall and how to get to my house through it, so navigating through it wasn't hard. We team lifted Feline's unconscious body through the manhole that was just a mile or two from my house, with twenty-three seconds to spare.

Of course, we both knew that if the Bat was going to go after us, even if she didn't know where I lived, we weren't exactly subtle in not leaving a trial, she could definitely track us down if she really wanted to.

But for some reason, I was sure she wasn't going to and that whatever trail we left behind, she'd probably cover it up, not for us, but for Feline. It's the same reason that Harley knew that I wasn't going to drop him when he leapt off that railing...love.


	5. Chapter 5

"Is he dead?" Harley asks, inspecting Feline who was strapped to one of my wooden kitchen chairs, bound by a rope.

He may have been rendered unconscious by whatever The Bat injected in him, but we didn't get a chance to ask how long it would last so we had to take precaution. The last thing we needed was Feline waking up with Harley's insanity still running through his system.

Frost and I were at my cabinet near my sink trying to get him to coax the Green forward so it can bring the makeshift box up and toward the surface of the soil but it's proving to be very difficult for him to successfully bring it up, being that raising something from the soil was such a delicate matter.

I was beyond frustrated and so was Frost, trying to walk someone through using the powers it took years to master is more difficult than I thought. Pure emotion may cause us to access each other's abilities more easily than others, but this particular one requires a type of finesse that Frost is having great difficulty with.

"Just keep trying, keep focusing, you'll know it when you feel it, and no Harley, he's just knocked out " I answer Harley as I reassure Frost. He nods as he continues circling his hands over the soil trying to dig deep to the log that was deep beneath it, I get up and run my fingers through my hair nervously, we were running out of time.

Sunrise was in about twenty minutes and we've got everything we need, it was just that fucking crystal we needed and getting it was the hard part. I buried it deep as a precautionary measure, but now, with everything that's happened, I was deeply regretting that decision.

The clock was ticking and we still had no crystal, I walked over to the table and sat down, Harley followed suit sitting across from me.

"So, The Bat really helped you? Like let you escape?" he asked, we sort of filled him in when we got back but I didn't get a chance to answer all of them because the moment we got back I was trying to get Frost to bring the log to the surface.

That was about thirty minutes ago, we were all frustrated at this point but I couldn't blame Frost, they type of skill I used to do that is very specific and purposeful, and without the experience of having my powers for as long as I had, to say it was difficult was an understatement.

We didn't have all night because the night was almost morning, but pressuring Frost wouldn't make this process any easier, we needed him focused and calm if this was going to work.

No matter how stressed I may have been at the fact that time was just ticking away, I had to keep it hidden, Frost knew what needed to be done and I'm certain that he wants his powers back just as badly as I wanted mine, it's just a matter of having patience and hoping that we can get it in time.

"Yeah, she did? She never really seemed like the sentimental or loving type, but apparently Feline has a special place in her righteous heart, go figure," I answer, nodding towards the unconscious Feline, thankful that Harley was providing me with a slight distraction from the current situation.

"She really loves him that much, huh? To let you all go like that. It must be nice, having someone you love care about you more than themselves, more than their goals," Harley says, his voice trailing off as he turns to look at Feline.

I realize at that moment the opportunity that this situation has afforded me. This is the first time I get to talk to the real Hartley, not the Joker's boy, not the psychiatrist, but the real Hartley, the sane one. I look at him inquisitively, he turns to face me and notices my stare,

"What?" he asks.

"So you're completely sane, right? And you remember everything that's happened so far in the not so sane Hartley's life?" I ask and Harley, who I now realized was actually my Dean again, for the first time in years, he was Dean, my pretend big brother.

"Yes," he says, his voice laced with discomfort,

"Everything, down to the darkest deeds. It's odd actually, I remember everything, I know it was me that did it, but it just...it feels like I'm looking at an entirely different person like I was possessed."

"You mean after you fell into the chemical vat?" I asked.

"No, way before that, a long time ago, back when I was a kid being beaten John, my so-called father," he answers, taking a deep breath before continuing,

"I was always fucked up Sam, from the beginning, Mr. – I mean, the Joker just...capitalized on it, brought to the surface. But I've always wanted this deep down, to feel what it was like to take a life, to snuff out someone's spark, it was a dark desire that I just suppressed for years.

As much as I want to lay all the blame on him, all he did was take advantage of an already difficult situation."

"So...you were always wanted to kill people?" I ask.

"Well, not full-on kill people, but hurt them? Yes. It progressed the more my father abused me, soon it went from a slight whisper, 'hurt someone, cut someone, break his leg' and then it just progressively got worse, 'smother him, slit his throat, shoot him'.

But I always suppressed it, and it always felt like I was in a consistent battle with my desires and what the world wanted from me at least until...well until..." he trails off again.

"Until...what?" I press on.

"Until I met you," he answers, finally looking at me in my eyes.

"When I met you, things weren't as bad, yeah I still had urges, but they slowly faded, no longer screams but back to the whispers, and then they eventually stopped completely. I felt like...well, I felt like this.

Like I do right now...normal. I guess that's when I got cocky. I thought that now that I was normal I could go off and be normal, desert the life that I thought was far behind me," he asks, and that small pang of heartache reveals itself inside me for a moment and freezes over with Frost's powers.

"Desert me," I say, coldly, my voice full of a steel resolve, not a flicker of the tears that would have welled up came forward, again I thanked this aspect of Frost's powers that shielded him from showing his emotions.

"Yes," he answers honestly, and his honesty actually surprised me,

"You were apart of that life, and that was the life I never wanted to remember. I cared about you deeply, but I thought that if I kept holding on, I'd be holding on to the pain that my dad caused me, the pain that my mind kept reminding me of. But...as you can clearly see," he said, nodding towards Feline,

"That didn't work."

"Why?" I ask.

"Why what?"

"Why did you stop loving me?" I ask, my voice quiet, my heart may be frozen, but there was still a little quiver in my voice, a quiver of the old Sam that I hated.

Even with Frost's powers, I still had a small piece of my old self still deep inside and apparently even cryokinesis couldn't freeze away.

"I didn't," he answered.

"Bullshit," I curse back, the anger bubbling slightly inside me.

"No, Sam, I didn't. I pushed you away, yes, but I could never stop loving you...even...even when I'm like that," he gestures once again towards Feline,

"I tried to stop, I tried to bury the feelings I had for you, and it, well it made crazier than I already was. So when I saw you again, after all those years, when I heard you were in trouble, I wanted to regain what I'd lost, but being the self-centered idiot I was, I didn't even see what I'd done to you, why you hated me so much, rightfully so.

You had every reason to hate me, and instead of understanding that, instead of letting you find your way back to me, I turned my emotions to someone else. Turned to Joker, and that gave me some peace I guess, at least, if I loved someone like him, I could...I could punish myself for what I'd done to you. That was the plan whether I knew it consciously or not."

"You loved him because you wanted to punish yourself?" I asked, the realization becoming more and more apparent.

"Of course, what I did to you, cutting you out of my life like that, I needed to be punished, badly. So, what better way to punish yourself that to fall in love with a man who would not only beat the hell out of you but...but never truly love you the same way.

It was sort of the perfect comeuppance for me," he answered, shrugging his shoulders and I just looked at him with bewilderment.

"But, the problem with redirecting love is that...well, it starts off as redirection and then...then it turns into something else. Soon you can't distinguish the desire from the punishment. Soon, you start to really fall in love with the person you rebounded on. I couldn't have you, so I fell in love with him, literally.

So...I became Harley Quinn, the Joker's boy, and Poison Ivy's fuck buddy. I got my best friend back, a boyfriend, and my darkness. In theory, that should've been enough," he continues, trailing off again.

"But it's not?" I ask.

"No. Not really. I love Joker, as much as I hate to admit it, we found love in our relationship. A deeply toxic and dangerous one, but...love nonetheless. The chemicals at ACE just made it more solidified, even if I wanted to, I couldn't stop loving him, it runs too deep if not deeper.

And for a while...that was okay. That darkness was something that I asked for, and I got it. but there was a problem with that darkness."

"Problem?" I ask.

"Yeah, problem, because no matter how much darkness is in your soul there's still just a sliver of light, one thing or idea that keeps you up at night, that makes your otherwise perfect existence still...imperfect," he answers.

"I'm not following," I answer back, not seeing where he was going with this.

"I love Joker, regardless of how it started or where it began, the love I share with him is never going anywhere, with or without the insanity. But...then there's you."

"Me?" I ask, trying to get to the answer, this is the deepest a conversation between Harley and me has ever gotten. He's never been this raw or real with me and while I still had him, I needed to hear the truth, the truth behind what he's talking about.

"Yes. You. I think...the way I feel about I mean...I think it goes beyond just you being my friend, I think that I—well, I feel like I'm in l—" he starts but before he could finish, we were all stirred by the rumble of the ground beneath us and I immediately turned to Frost who the both of us forgot was still present in the room.

"I got it! I think I got it, Ivy, what do I do now?" he asks, and as much as I needed Harley to finish his thought, this was more important at the moment.

I didn't even realize how long we were talking and the moment I looked at my clock and the subtle navy blue sky starting to take on a lighter shade outside. We were just a few minutes away from sunrise.

We needed to focus, I quickly ran over to Frost who was still circling his hand over to soil as it started to part underneath his hand and I watched as the log started to rise beneath it. But at the same time, I heard the subtle groan of Feline.

"Alright, just pull your thoughts forward, think open, open up to me, coax the log open," I instruct.

"Can't we just break it open," he suggests, his voice full of stress.

"No, it's oak, by the time we broke in it'd be to late, and I'd kill you before I let you hurt them anyway, so just focus and let it open to you, Harley watch Feline, make sure he doesn't get antsy," I answer, and Frost closes his eyes.

He pulls his hand back and the makeshift box slides open revealing the bagged crystal inside, I quickly grab it and just as Frost lets go, the box snaps shut and I hear Harley yelp out as he's knocked to the ground. I quickly get up and turn around to see Feline standing hunched over still strapped to the chair.

Apparently having knocked Harley back with his hand and I watched as he jumped into the air, backward, crushing the chair beneath him, and loosening the ropes.

He makes a beeline for the door, and Harley, reacting solely on emotion, uses Feline's catlike reflects to leap after him, landing on him but upon impact, slamming his head, hard on the wooden doorknob, and Feline's head immediately starts bleeding.

"Harley!" Frost screams out, him and I quickly rushing over to assess the damage, to Feline's head.

"Sorry, I was just trying to stop him. I didn't realize how strong I was," he answers.

"It's fine, I know, I was about to hit him with a cold blast too, he would've hit it either way," I say, trying to calm Harley down as he looks on fearfully.

He really didn't mean to hurt him, and seeing regret like that in Harley's eyes was...different.

"Well, it doesn't matter now does it, if he's dead it won't work," Frost says, anger filling his voice as he lifts Feline's bloody head,

"Fuck! It's bad, Harley why isn't he healing?"

"I told you I have a slight healing factor, slight being the operative word. I heal faster than other people, but I can still be hurt."

"Well, shouldn't it be healing?"

"Not if it's too deep, it'd be like if I got shot, I'm not like you guys, my body absorbs impact but it doesn't erase injuries as quickly as you three, I could still be hurt. And if it's bad enough, be killed."

"Oh fuck, fuck, fuck," Frost panics, as he tries to stop the bleeding,

"We've only got two minutes left before the sun rises, what—what are we gonna do?"

"What we were already going to do," I answer,

"Feline has a healing factor, shit, he's got nine lives right, nine chances to die and be brought back with his healing factor.

He said last time he got shot a few months ago so he's on life number six, if we can get his powers switched while there's still breath in his body, he'll get his powers back just as he dies and his healing factor will kick in."

"But we don't know if it'll w—" Frost starts but I'm already loosening the bag and dropping the crystal into my hand,

"Right now we don't have a choice," I answer and the crystal glows a blue and burns as I toss it to Frost.

He catches it as it fades to green glow, he throws it towards Harley who grabs it and it turns a bright yellow and it lands on Feline's exposed stomach and glows a reddish-purple and it bounded off its own accord from Feline's stomach.

I caught it midair with the bag and just like before, once it made contact with the inside of the bag it released a while pulse of energy, but this time, the force projected inward, thrusting us forward slightly and we all looked around the room to see if anything had changed. I looked towards the clock and the sun was rising. Nothing had changed.

"We're too late!" Frost cries out angrily,

"Fuck! Fuck! This is some bullshit, some fucking bullshit."

I feel myself start to get emotional, the prospect of being stuck like this becoming more and more of my reality and my heart became heavy with sorrow. Just as the sunlight started to beam in, further rubbing salt on the wound, Feline was the first to be covered by its beam as it slowly crept its way in and he leaped up from the ground, startling the three of us, his eyes glowing yellowish hazel as his pupils turned to slits.

"Five," his voice echoed ominously, speaking in a voice that didn't sound anything like his own, and he blinks, his eyes returning to their natural state.

He cracks his neck a little as his hair fades back to its deep black color along with his skin regaining its natural pigmentation and his head was healing the bloody wound,

"Fuck, did I die again? Ugh, down to five, what's wrong with you guys?"

I quickly turned to Frost who took in a sharp intake of breath as the sun's beams hit him second from the window and watched as his skin faded from a light washed out green to a pale white, almost blue color and his eyes glowing white along with his hair losing all it's pigmentation, becoming shock white.

He breathed out and the air in front of him became a mist. I was next, I felt the chill leave my body and the warmth of my blood filling with chlorophyll, as I took in a fresh breath. I watched as my hair regained it's pigmentation and returned to its fiery red color and my skin slowly took on its signature pale hint of green hue and the delicious pores reopening in my skin to the glorious scent of nature that surrounded me.

Then there was the feeling, the pulsing feeling that flowed through my body, the Green was with me again, so were my children, I could feel them in and around me, I was back, I was me again. I was only able to relish the moment for a moment when I looked back and noticed that Harley was backing away as the sunlight hit him and he had his hand on his head as he stumbled back, disoriented.

"Sam, I don't—I don't feel so good," he was barely able to get the sentence out before he fell to the ground I quickly got to him as he writhed on the ground like he was in pain.

"What's wrong, what's happening to him?" Frost asked, his voice echoing with the icy chill over it returned.

"I don't know, his hearts racing and his body temperature is fluctuating rapidly, it's like he's going into shock," I answer, reaching out with the Green to sense the trouble going on in his body.

"Sam, Sam, it's happening, it's coming back, oh god, I can feel it. Sammy, I'm scared," he answers, the fear radiating from his voice making me wish there was something I could do to help him. Everyone else's transition was smooth, why was his like he was being tortured.

"That happened to me too, when I uh, when I became like him, it was like something was trying to get out, tearing it's way out," Feline answers, his voice small and quiet, starting to recall what it was like to become Harley for a night.

"Harley, it's going to be okay, you just—I guess—you just have to let it happen, it's going to be okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I say, tearing up a little. I didn't understand why this was hurting so much, he wasn't dying but...but it felt like I was losing a side of my best friend, my brother, that I wouldn't get to see again, and it fucking hurt.

"I know, I know," he says, trying to recollect himself,

"I have to tell you something—I have to tell you before—before I go back, before—ah—before it comes back," he says, still struggling against the insanity that's spreading through him.

"It's okay you don't have to," I say, holding his hand as he squeezes tightly.

"No, I have to now—I may not get another chance. I thought—I made myself believe that the love I had for you was just—just friendly, brotherly even, nothing more.

But in the back of my mind, I knew there was something—missing between us, something more, but my mind wouldn't let me even entertain the idea that I might feel—ah.

That if I could do it all over again, I would choose—Ivy, I think that I might still be—in love—with y—" he starts.

"You might be what? Come, Harley, come on," I say, the tears running down my cheeks. I needed to hear him say it, if he said it, it would be real and I knew that I wouldn't be alone, but I watched the light leave his eyes, the spark that brought back the old Hartley completely gone.

I watched him release an agonizingly slow breath as his body stopped struggling.

His skin fades back to its unnaturally pale washed-out color, and his hair loses its dirty blonde color, now being replaced with his signature platinum blonde, with the blue and red highlights fading in.

He blinks a little as he tilts his head a looks at everyone around him curiously. I let his hand go and wipe the tears from my eyes, Hartley Quinzel is gone now, Harley Quinn has returned.

"What? Do I have something on my face?" He asks, his faux Bronx accent having returned as he looks at me and I quickly smile at him, hoping that he doesn't notice the puffiness of my tear-filled eyes.

"Uh, no, you're fine, we're just uh...we're glad you're back," I answer, but there is just the slightest hint of a lie. I'm glad he's okay, but...but I just wanted a few more minutes with Hartley, just...just a few more minutes.

"Did I go somewhere?" he asks, genuinely confused.

"Everything's fine Harley, you're fine," I say getting up and Frost is immediately on the ground-hugging and kissing Harley on the face,

"Oh Harley," Frost says, between kisses,

"I'm so sorry, I didn't," he says, kissing him again on the cheek,

"I didn't mean it, I was just so full of emotions and I'm not really an emotional person," he says, still kissing a more than willing Harley.

"Sorry about what," Harley asks, kissing and licking Frost's neck, making his way up to his earlobe. Harley doesn't mind the extra attention, he and Mr. J had a deal when it came to monogamy.

Joker could sleep with as many girls as he wanted so long as he never slept with a boy, and Harley could sleep with any guy he wanted, but I was the only one he could keep a consistent sexual relationship with, aside from the Joker.

Anyone else, he could only fuck every once in a while, and even then, only people the Joker was okay with him fucking. Frost and Feline were the only two others, outside of myself that could sleep with Harley.

Which is why he was a willing participant with Frost's affections. Frost always had a thing for Harley and every now and again they would hook up.

"About choking you and trying to kill you," Frost admits, pulling away, just a little embarrassed,

"Is there anything I can do to get you to forgive me?"

Harley just smiles deviously.

"Water under the bridge under one condition?" he says, running his hands down his back and lying it on Frost's ass.

"Anything," Frost says.

"I get to top you tomorrow night? Let me have a go at this ass," he says, still holding onto Frost's butt.

"Deal," he says, and he hugs Harley tightly.

"I should pass out more often," Harley says, hugging Frost back.

"You never let me fuck you? You told me you were strictly top" Feline says, crossing his arms annoyed.

"Well, let me try to almost kill you and then we can talk," Frost answers, getting up from the ground and helping Harley stand up. Harley takes my hand and smiles as he pulls me closer and I follow limply.

"You okay, Ivy?" he asks, and Feline and Frost look at me, their eyes full of concern and knowing, but I give them a look and they turn away, it wasn't their place to but in.

I force a smile, kissing Harley on the lips, he returns it and looks at me, still awaiting my answer,

"I told you, I'm just glad you're okay, you're back to your old self, now we don't have to baby you like Feline when we talk about killing people," I joke, and Harley laughs a little, along with Frost, Feline just rolls his eyes.

"Sorry, I'm not into killing innocent people, just not in my nature, call me a diva if you want, doesn't fit my style," he says, catching on to me trying to change the topic and Harley smiles, accepting my explanation.

"Sure Feline, your hands are as clean as they come," Harley adds in.

"Didn't say I don't kill people at all, I just have a brand to uphold," Feline says.

"More like some pussy to uphold, he knows if he kills an innocent person he can't get between The Bat's legs anymore," Frost adds in.

"Eat a dick, Frost," Feline counters.

"I'd much rather suck one," Frost fires back and we all laugh. The topic of conversation had been changed, it was no longer on me and Harley but on Feline.

I thanked the Green that I didn't have to dwell on our conversation any longer. Harley still held my hand for a few more moments, as he does sometimes, and after a few minutes or so Harley called the client and we all went to drop off the crystal.

The man didn't say much or speak to us, he was a military man, that much I could tell, and he was wearing a uniform, with his last name embroidered into it, 'Flag', an odd last name. He handed us a duffle bag full of the 40,000 and we divided it among us. 10,000 a piece.

Feline and Frost headed to the club and Harley asked if he could come over to get dressed so we can meet them there, Joker wasn't going to be back in town until Monday and it was still a Saturday night.

The four of us had 10,000 dollars burning a hole in our pocket, we were all ready to let loose and have some fun. But I couldn't get what he said out of my head, or more importantly, what he almost said.

"Harley," I call his name, he was in my other room down the hall, doing his makeup in the mirror since I inadvertently destroyed my bathroom when I had Frost's powers,

"Do you really hear voices?" trying to soften the blow of the question I really wanted to ask him.

"Sometimes," Harley responds offhandedly, still applying his signature red lipstick as if he'd said something as simple as, 'yes, I have a car too.'

"What do they tell you?" I ask, interested.

"To slit your throat and smother you in your sleep," he pauses, his voice deadly serious, as he stares at me in the mirror with a murderous glint in his eyes. I cock my head, and he smiles and laughs a little,

"I'm kidding Ivy, that's not what they say."

"Oh, real funny Harley," I say sarcastically, feigning a laugh.

"So you're gonna ask me what you really want to know or are you just going to keep playing twenty questions," he says, lifting his mascara to his eyelashes and blinking as he applied it.

"What do you mean?" I ask, feigning confusion.

"Please, Ivy. I've known you too long for you to lie to me convincingly, now what's wrong?"

"What do you remember from being sane?" I ask, just getting straight to it.

"Not much," he answers, honestly, leaning into the mirror to get a better look as he put the mascara on his other eyelash,

"It's all still sort of fuzzy, I remember tidbits, you know, kind of like trying to watch a VHS tape but those tracking lines keep getting in the way.

I get like snippets of conversation, moments, feelings, not much though. Honestly, I don't really want to remember, it was kind of weird, why do ask?"

"Because...well because you said something, or you were trying to say something," I start, but I can't bring myself to say it because of a memory of what sane Harley told me, it was still so present in my mind.

I could ask him about what he was going to say, but I just felt like Harley would try to change the topic or he'd lie, I needed an answer without asking that question.

"Trying to say what? What do you mean?" he asks, turning to face me.

"Would you kill me, Harley?" I ask, and Harley shifts uncomfortably before smiling,

"If you wanted to play rough Ivy, all you had to do was ask, I didn't know you were into—"

"I'm serious Harley," I assert my voice, knowing this is how Harley would take this kind of question and he looks at me,

"I can see that," his voice losing its Bronx accent as he answers.

"If the Joker wanted you to kill me, would you? If you had to pick between him and me, who would you pick?" I ask, my voice shaking slightly with emotion, Harley puts his mascara down and shakes his head.

"If this is about me trying to get you two to hang out, I'll stop, you guys don't have to be friends, I'll stop trying to get you two—" he starts.

"Harley, answer the question, if you had to pick, who would you kill?" I ask him and he just looks at him and his eyes dart around the room and he takes a deep breath.

"I don't like this game Ivy," Harley says, his voice returning to the accent, but now it sounded more childlike and innocent, he was scared, but I had to press and get an answer.

"Please, Harley, I—I need to know?" I ask, my heart swelling with emotion. The sane Harley told me a truth, but I needed this Harley, the real Harley to tell me.

Regardless of how he says he feels about me, I needed to know the truth, if it was life or death, which one of us would he pick.

"I'm not picking between you two, alright, and that's the end of the discussion I love you both, that's your answer," he says, and he starts to walk away, I grab his arm.

"Harley—" I begin.

"I said end of discussion!" he screams at me, and this was the first time ever, Harley was the one in charge. He was speaking to me like a grown man, the bass and absolution in his voice made me let his arm go and I looked at him as he stared at me his eyes full of reprimand.

He grabbed me by my shoulders and pulled me close to him and through clenched teeth and seething rage he continued,

"Don't ever ask me that again, alright, ever!"

I nodded, and his face softened as he kissed me, ever so gently, releasing me and pulling me in deeper as he looked me in my eyes,

"I love you with all my heart and I love him with all my soul. I'd rather die than have to pick between you too. So if your question is who I'd pick, I'd kill myself," he answered.

And for a moment, when I looked into his eyes, I realized that maybe, just maybe, sane Hartley underestimated what the two of us had. Maybe even insane, Harley still loves me just as much as he loves the Joker.

He releases me and I watch as he walks down the hall, picking up his bat that he left in the kitchen, and throwing it over his shoulder as he left, shutting the door behind him. I hear a ding and walk over to my phone that was on the dresser and lifted it up.

\\\ I'll see you at The Siren's Club in twenty minutes, be there and let's see if we can get Feline to play with us tonight, already got dibs on some Frosty ass tomorrow. Can we stop talking about sad stuff?

I smile, and type back,

//Yeah, sure. And it's a date. Feline's in the middle, you fuck him while he fucks me. See you in twenty.

\\\ 😉 🍆 💦 Can't wait!

He responds.

I put my phone back in my pocket and smile a little. Truth is, asking Harley to pick between The Joker and me was foolish. Do I love him? Yes. But maybe, maybe that's all our love is supposed to be.

Maybe I don't need to be his 'true love'. As much as I can't stand the Joker, as much as Harley has revealed to me about the true nature of their relationship, he admitted that the love he felt for him was real.

He loves him differently than he loves me, and maybe that's okay. Harley and I tried the relationship thing many years ago, but it didn't work out. Maybe after all this time, if we tried again, maybe...maybe it could.

We are different people now. But parts of our love were in different directions, while Harley loves the Joker with all his heart, and loves me with all his soul. I'm much the same.

I love Harley with all my heart, and part of me will always have a piece of me that wonders, what if, what if we got back together, what if our love was able to flourish both sexually and romantically, what would that be like.

But in all honesty, the same rings true for me. I love him with all my heart, but...I love the Green with all my soul. If I had to pick between the two...I don't think I could. With that knowledge in mind, I realized the absurdity in my question, why would I ask him to choose between what he loves and his devotion when I can't do the same.

I shake off the ridiculous insecurity and accept our relationship as what it was. Trying to see more when our souls are both tied to other things was probably just a shock of our powers being switched, the stress, that's what it was.

I accept this reality and I make a move to leave the room and suddenly I feel a rush of warm air course all around me. My vines and plants starting to wrap around me, not defensively or in an attempt to hurt me, but almost like a hug.

I couldn't explain it, but I felt like I was being hugged deeply, with such an overwhelming sense of love and peace that I felt myself being brought to tears. This wasn't my power doing this, it was someone else, something leagues more powerful than me, it was...it was the very thing that gave me my power in the first place.

I heard a voice in my mind, almost a whisper, and yet it felt so powerful and ancient,

"I've missed you, Ivy, my little drop of poison."

The warm breeze slowly left the room and the vines returned to rest in the ground below, I felt my powers extending, growing, and expanding.

I felt my hair from the tips turn from the deep red color to a dark shade of emerald green, and slowly slid it's way up halfway through my hair, giving me an ombre of red at the top and green at the bottom. I felt more deeply connected as my skin turned from a hint of pale green to a more olive-like color.

I was brought to my knees, in thanks and I cried so heavily that my head was throbbing. My vines felt my distress and wrapped around me comforting me, and I just cried more. I've felt the Green before, felt warnings and some senses, but to have the Mother talk to me directly, that had never happened before, not until today.

I finally found the strength to stand and smiled around the room, even if Harley and I couldn't find that type of love together, I already had that other love in my life.

A love that filled my soul just as the Joker filled Harley's and I thanked Mother Green for reminding me of that fact. I walked and headed towards the door and turned back to the ground, calling my babies from the ground, with an ease that was no doubt a result of my power advancement and spoke,

"I love you with all my soul, nothing will take you from me ever again," I said and I felt my babies coo at my devotion and sent them back down to rest.

I have Harley and I have the Green, that's more than enough love for me. I smiled as I walked outside, closing the door behind me as I headed off to the Siren's Club to catch up with Harley.

________________________________________________________________________________

"So the operation went off without a hitch, hm?" Amanda Waller asks as she inspects Ra's Al Ghul's Mutatio crystal safely encased in the black cushion of the metal briefcase.

"Yes, ma'am. They defeated our most powerful metahuman, secured the rock, all before The Bat had a chance to step in," Sargent Rick Flag answers, militarized and stoic.

"Well, I admit, they are quite talented. One call from you and not only do they secure the artifact but they kill Binate, and he's been trained by our very own. Colonel Jason finally approved my Suicide Squad, finally understanding just how dangerous Ra's Al Ghul's artifacts are, especially his Book of Lazarus still in the wind," she closes her eyes, fantasizing about wielding such a weapon,

"The power that book can give the government, the knowledge, we'd be an unstoppable force of nature.

None of our men would ever die, no nuclear weapon would affect us, and no country would dare challenge us. With those dark secrets, we'd go from being a global superpower to being the absolute authority.

He's given us full resources to search for it, but finding it is the easy part, getting it with all the mystical protections and enhanced persons is the hard part. That's why this was Squad's first unofficial field test, and they've passed with flying colors.

I suppose Strange was right, they do make a great team," Amanda answers, smiling broadly.

"Where are they now?" she asks, coming out of her fantasy state and back to her cold and commanding tone.

"At Braeden Keen's Club, the Sirens."

Amanda perks up as she leans forward, "Sirens, I like that, it has a nice ring to it. When we have intel on the books last known location them yet, we'll need more time, but all systems are go once we find the location of Book.

Ra's may be dead, but before he can resurrect himself we need every available member searching the globe to find the Book's last known location, understood?"

"Yes, Director Waller," Flag answers.

"You are dismissed," she says, and he takes his leave as Amanda swivels in her chair facing the all glass windows as she smiles darkly,

"My Squad? My Sirens? No....I've got it," she laughs,

"The Suicide Sirens."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Sage ends in Origins: The Suicide Sirens.


End file.
